Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

webbtelescope.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 410 posts

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#351

Post by WebbWeaver »

WebbWeaver wrote: post #293

I really appreciate the work of the US Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories for creating HITRAN. HITRAN is a molecular spectroscopic database used to look molecules in gas and atmosphere. They are the standard archive for transmission and radiance calculations. Without their groundwork we would not be as good at understanding planetary atmospheres. https://hitran.org/ free after registration https://hitran.org/m…

Aww yiss new images! Extremely generous analysis and 3d orientation.

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G...

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G...

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/035/01G...

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G...

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#352

Post by aaroninsf »

Retric wrote: post #247
j0e1 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Image): > https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png Is this for real?! It looks like it came right out of a Sci-Fi movie/book. Could anyone explain how much of this is post-editing magic?

It’s real light, just color shifted as the JWST is designed to look at severely very distant and thus red shifted objects. The nebula is however much closer than that. Anyway, that looks like science fiction because science fiction borrowed that look from astronomy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula

I have been wondering,

how does the scale of color shifting relate to the red-shift present in deep-field subject?

Idly wondering: are the furtherest objects being captured, so red-shifted, that the translation for human viewing done in these images more or less balances that out, so what we see in the translated images for some thickness of distance-bubble, is what we would see from a much closer perspective with the naked eye, akin to "true color." (I.e. so close that the relative red-shift would be insignificant...)

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#353

Post by s1artibartfast »

jacquesm wrote: post #342
s1artibartfast wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true at all, many of the objects are not far away. The Carina Nebula (imaged) is 7,500 light years away. It is still there. It seems like people are going through mental gymnastics to avoid answering the question. If someone asked what a famous black and white photo like raising the flag would look like in person, would people give the same nonsense answers? e.g. "There is no "in real life", "the past cant…

Yes, you're right, for that particular nebula. Of course there are other nearby objects that are interesting in that spectral range. But MIRI really shines when it comes to distant galaxies whose light is so far redshifted that it shows up as deep infrared.

Yes, but even then you can answer the question of what it would look like to the human eye if transported closer and/or back in time.

They would look different, have different colors and features. Galaxies would look more like andromeda as viewed via telescope.

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#354

Post by Paddywack »

whiteboardr wrote: post #77

Watching the livestream i was more than surprised, that color correction actually happens in Photoshop. Also, there seem to be multiple layer-masks involved for specific regions and objects. I get that you can shift and composite color, based on hue, apply filters etc, but: Photoshop? Curious if anyone can explain, that what we see is actual science or some touched up version of objects in our universe. p.s.: What st…

I read a detailed interview with the person who does the enhancements a couple of days ago (can’t recall where a grrr).

He said: A) there are two of them in the team doing the imaging B) it doesn’t start with an image - it’s literally heaps of binary data that the scientists stitch together C) he then does the colour overlay based on agreed norms (one colour per input frequency for consistency) D) most of his “touch up” work is getting the colour gradient right between the brightest and dimmer objects - without this a lot of resolution would be lost (brights too bright, or dim not visible).

Hope this helps…

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#355

Post by jacquesm »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #353
jacquesm wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you're right, for that particular nebula. Of course there are other nearby objects that are interesting in that spectral range. But MIRI really shines when it comes to distant galaxies whose light is so far redshifted that it shows up as deep infrared.

Yes, but even then you can answer the question of what it would look like to the human eye if transported closer and/or back in time. They would look different, have different colors and features. Galaxies would look more like andromeda as viewed via telescope.

What I wouldn't give for a first person view from a planet around a double star... oh well.

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#356

Post by Barrera »

It's easy to lose sight of this in the amazing images:

> In a dream come true for exoplaneteers, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has demonstrated its unprecedented ability to analyze the atmosphere of a planet more than 1,000 light-years away. With the combined forces of its 270-square-foot mirror, precision spectrographs, and sensitive detectors, Webb has – in a single observation – revealed the unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence for clouds that were thought not to exist based on prior observations. The transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant WASP-96 b, made using Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph, provides just a glimpse into the brilliant future of exoplanet research with Webb.

and later:

> WASP-96 b is one of more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets in the Milky Way. Located roughly 1,150 light-years away in the southern-sky constellation Phoenix, it represents a type of gas giant that has no direct analog in our solar system. With a mass less than half that of Jupiter and a diameter 1.2 times greater, WASP-96 b is much puffier than any planet orbiting our Sun. And with a temperature greater than 1000°F, it is significantly hotter. WASP-96 b orbits extremely close to its Sun-like star, just one-ninth of the distance between Mercury and the Sun, completing one circuit every 3½ Earth-days.

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#357

Post by capableweb »

HedgeGriffon wrote: post #325
capableweb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's not very good implementation. PetaPixel usually have good content, but using a GIF to compare these two images? Come on! You can see the compression artifacts very easily.

Umm.. not compression artifacts. GIF uses lossless LZW. Maybe color palette artifacts since GIFs are usually palettized and not true color (although with a tortured use of local color tables they can even be true color)

This is the nitpick we all come here for :)

Choosing a limited palette in order to save bytes, some might say is compression. If said compression hurts the image quality, some might call that "compression artifacts".

The point stands, GIF was a poor choice for the format here.

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#358

Post by ghostpepper »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #150
whiteboardr wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, but how is the sausage made then? Guess, that’s my main question. I get that the aquired data needs to be transformed in a way so we get an image that depicts a reality we can visually process. I honestly thought there’s some tools in Nasa’s imaging group that, based on scientific rules, pumps out an image that is correct - seeing Photoshop in use left me wonder… I get that the investment needs to be “sold” t…

No, there's none of that. These pictures aren't being used for any kind of science. They're 100% PR pieces, made to look pretty - which is fine!

I like to think that these cosmological structures are inherently beautiful the same way abstract mathematics is, and colorizing it is just a way to convey a sense of that beauty to most people who don't speak the language.

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#359

Post by s1artibartfast »

april_22 wrote: post #184
throwaway09223 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there's none of that. These pictures aren't being used for any kind of science. They're 100% PR pieces, made to look pretty - which is fine!

Which makes me wonder how all these galaxies and nebulas would look like in real life. Would they look similar to how they colored it? Are those images maybe potraying a completely wrong reality?

Responses to this question are really interesting. I usually take these kinds of evasive non answers in bad faith, thinking that people are refusing to acknowledge the validity of the question.

After some thought, I wonder if it is more an issue of neurodiversity. Perhaps some people cant imagine themselves viewing a celestial object, or can't imagine the desire to do so.

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#360

Post by deanCommie »

deanCommie wrote: post #231
historynops wrote: post #10

A lot of the pictures have some bright stars with 6 long lens flare like points coming out of them in a consistent pattern. Is that because of the hexagonal shape of JWT's lenses/mirrors?

From the other comments, I understand why it's there, but i wish they would photoshop them out. The images take on a more synthetic and fake quality when the technical physical man-made constraints of our telescope get projected out onto the natural very much NON-man-made universe. Look at https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png and observe the incredible entropy in the nebula itself. The consisten…

to be clear - i realize these are for science. they shouldn't be edited for scientists.

but we should edit them :)

Post reply on HN