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“Webb observes near infrared to mid infrared light” Interesting. I thought all the fuss was because it would be in the visible spectrum (i.e. nice magazine pho

“Webb observes near infrared to mid infrared light” Interesting. I thought all the fuss was because it would be in the visible spectrum (i.e. nice magazine photos and desktop backgrounds) Disclaimer: I know very little about astrophotography

beecafe 5y ago
Almost all colour astrophotographs you see are made up of a composite of many bands, like UV, IR, X-ray, etc (and visible), with colours mapped to the different wavelengths. The instruments collect many wavelengths because it allows us to see through certain things, as well as recognise certain elements and phenomena from their spectrum.
- op00to 5y ago
  Jinx!
op00to 5y ago
Almost all images you see from space probes are false color - they approximate what it might look like or what might look pleasing to the human eye. There will be plenty of awesome images coming out of this bad boy.
- kloch 5y ago
  This would be a good quick hack project-- a program that accurately blueshifts JWST images.
  - redisman 5y ago
    Oh neat a picture of nothing
  - sbierwagen 5y ago
    You can see the list of NIRCam filters here: http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/nircam/in_filters.php#wavelength http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/nircam/in_filters.php#wavelen... Only F070W is partly human-visible, everything else is off into infrared, as you'd expect.
patrick0d 5y ago
Because the universe is expanding the older and farther away light is the redder it looks to us. So by collecting this infrared light we can see farther back in time than we could with any other instrument before.
chrononaut 5y ago
Here's a band comparison between UV+visible and infrared (from the JWST Wikipedia page) that I thought was fitting given the question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#/media/File:Carina_Nebula_in_Visible_and_Infrared.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#/me...
nickhalfasleep 5y ago
It’s a good range for a wide variety of science, especially above the atmosphere. Also a good range to sniff the atmospheres of earth sized planets for chemical composition, if everything works just right. In theory Webb might be able to sniff out a water/nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, some thought to most likely come from plant life.

beecafe 5y ago

Almost all colour astrophotographs you see are made up of a composite of many bands, like UV, IR, X-ray, etc (and visible), with colours mapped to the different wavelengths. The instruments collect many wavelengths because it allows us to see through certain things, as well as recognise certain elements and phenomena from their spectrum.

op00to 5y ago
Jinx!

op00to 5y ago

Almost all images you see from space probes are false color - they approximate what it might look like or what might look pleasing to the human eye. There will be plenty of awesome images coming out of this bad boy.

kloch 5y ago
This would be a good quick hack project-- a program that accurately blueshifts JWST images.
- redisman 5y ago
  Oh neat a picture of nothing
- sbierwagen 5y ago
  You can see the list of NIRCam filters here: http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/nircam/in_filters.php#wavelength http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/nircam/in_filters.php#wavelen... Only F070W is partly human-visible, everything else is off into infrared, as you'd expect.

patrick0d 5y ago

Because the universe is expanding the older and farther away light is the redder it looks to us. So by collecting this infrared light we can see farther back in time than we could with any other instrument before.

chrononaut 5y ago

Here's a band comparison between UV+visible and infrared (from the JWST Wikipedia page) that I thought was fitting given the question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#/media/File:Carina_Nebula_in_Visible_and_Infrared.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#/me...

nickhalfasleep 5y ago

It’s a good range for a wide variety of science, especially above the atmosphere. Also a good range to sniff the atmospheres of earth sized planets for chemical composition, if everything works just right. In theory Webb might be able to sniff out a water/nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, some thought to most likely come from plant life.