21 ms·
Webb Telescope Image Sharpness Check
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- _joel 5y agoI'm so looking forward to proper first light. Waited half my life for it!
- xmddmx 5y agoOk great, but is there any way to click to see a high resolution image? The website design seems to prevent this.
- perihelions 5y ago(.png) https://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2022/04/webb_in_full_focus/24046962-1-eng-GB/Webb_in_full_focus.png https://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/im...
- xmddmx 5y agoInteresting - when I zoom in (to the 'detail' box) it looks very striated : i'm seeing what appears to be some sort of 45 degree diagnoal scanning procedure. Is this from the source or some sort of artifact of PNG? (zoom into the top left box which says 'detail')
- perihelions 5y agoThe text caption explains that; C-f for "microshutter array". The one you zoomed in on is a spectrograph that's not meant to take photos.
- xmddmx 5y agoOK, but I think if you announce "super good quality" or similar, people are going to zoom in and look at your pictures. Artifacts should be explained to head off confusion?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mturmon 5y agoAs @perihelions just noted, the explanation for the stripes you can see is provided in the article, just as you seem to be hoping for?
- dylan604 5y agoas always, context is key. "super good quality" refers to the comparison of the Spitzer and Webb images. it's clear that whever the alignment process is currently (as in, not finished yet), it is far far better resolution and results than the Spitzer was ever able to achieve. this is what has everyone excited. not that there's some artifacts in the image, but that even at this stage of the game it is already much much better and there's still room for improving during further alignment and other software tweaking.
- jug 5y agoWow, this is almost overwhelming and literally breathtaking. The quote "My god, it's full of stars" is all that springs to mind.
- mholt 5y agoRight-click, Open Image in New Tab
- 1970-01-01 5y agoSee https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31207376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31207376
- interestica 5y agoYeah seems broken. New tab. Though I expected better than a 5meg png
- SemanticStrengh 5y agoWhy does MIRI looks so much better?
- GuB-42 5y agoMIRI is the only instrument that works in mid-infrared, the other three work in near-infrared. It simply isn't seeing the same things. "Better looking" is subjective, we are literally talking about your favorite color. I personally prefer the other ones, MIRI looks blurry, but really, they all have their use and they all have great scientific potential.
- Robotbeat 5y agoBecause Webb is optimized for looking through the dust clouds and nebulosity, whereas we’re all used to looking at sweet nebulas from Hubble with their gorgeous dust clouds instead of just a collection of points of light with diffraction patterns. Webb really isn’t going to be the crowd pleaser that Hubble is. And that’s okay. But I do kind of wish that was communicated better early on.
- fallingknife 5y agoCan't wait to see a Webb deep field!
- m3kw9 5y agoWhat would deep field show that these images doesn’t?
- Robotbeat 5y agoGalaxies, i.e. cool nebulosity. Also, the deeper you look, the more redshifted it is. So eventually, Webb is capable of seeing full visible color spectrum again, if it looks far enough back in time. :) (Additionally, for the most deepest-field objects, they're actually significantly larger in terms of angular extent than nearer objects of the same physical size due to the fact that the ancient universe was smaller: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/12/07/ask-ethan-do-ancient-galaxies-get-magnified-by-the-expanding-universe/?sh=6a4050c4cb5f https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/12/07/ask-...)
- SemanticStrengh 5y agoIf only people saw what the optical terrestrial planet finder would have captured instead of webb..
- quercusa 5y agoThe optical performance of the telescope continues to be better than the engineering team’s most optimistic predictions. ... The image quality delivered to all instruments is “diffraction-limited,” meaning that the fineness of detail that can be seen is as good as physically possible given the size of the telescope. Congratulations, Webb team!
- COGlory 5y agoi.e. the aberrations and detector aren't limiting the resolution of the image?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 7373737373 5y agoI wish they would share many more photos, and also document what's happening on the engineers' screens The idea of 'exclusive use' rubs me the wrong way
- bnkamalesh 5y agoTrue, knowledge of the universe, our planet etc. being exclusive is indeed very irksome/painful :(
- perihelions 5y agoHere's the MIRI image (top-right) compared against Spitzer: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/05/MIRI_and_Spitzer_comparison_image https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/05/MIRI_and_S... ("MIRI and Spitzer comparison image")
- lisper 5y agoWow. Looking at that image I feel a weird superposition of awe and anger. Awe at the incredible work that it took to get that image and the fact that I'm around to see it, and anger at the rise of pseudo-science and the glorification of ignorance. Acquiring scientific knowledge is incredibly hard work, and we as a society denigrate it at our peril. The extent to which science denial is in fashion nowadays really steams my clams.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- teakettle42 5y agoThe emotions you’re expressing — awe and anger at disbelievers — are rooted more in religious sciencism than actual science. Science is critical and robust under criticism. Sciencism is not.
- SECProto 5y ago> The emotions you’re expressing — awe and anger at disbelievers — are rooted more in religious sciencism than actual science. They didn't say a word about "disbelievers" (which implies faith). They spoke of the "rise of pseudo-science and the glorification of ignorance", which are two things very much separate from belief/faith.
- teakettle42 5y ago> They didn't say a word about "disbelievers" (which implies faith). Sciencism is rooted in faith — faith in institutions and authority. Science is dispassionate and rooted in empiricism and logical reasoning. Enforced truth isn’t required — any claims can be tested and refuted. > They spoke of the "rise of pseudo-science and the glorification of ignorance", which are two things very much separate from belief/faith. Could have been written “the rise of heresy and the glorification of idolatry”. There’s no rise of pseudo-science; that’s been with us all along, and generally far more prevalent than it is today. The science continues to win regardless, because it can be proven without appeal to emotion or authority.
- timcavel 5y ago
- spitfire 5y agoFun fact the Hubble space telescope and now the James Webb uses NeXT computers to calibrate some of the instruments on the ground. Possibly even to test out configuration changes. In particular they’re used for the Aberrated Beam Analyser. The ABA has been used to verify the optical performance of many different science instruments.
- perihelions 5y agoI believe the scheduling planner is written in Common Lisp also. edit: It's derived from the one written for Hubble, https://franz.com/success/customer_apps/scheduling/sti.lhtml https://franz.com/success/customer_apps/scheduling/sti.lhtml ("Spike: Hubble Telescope Scheduling System")
- curling_grad 5y agoThis reminds me of this article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01431-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01431-y
- peeters 5y agoSome informative background about this release here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-pNS5mDExQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-pNS5mDExQ. I found it really interesting; it includes comparisons against past telescopes, insight into what physical limits come into play causing image artifacts, known engineering issues etc.
- alphabetting 5y agoLove it. Seriously can't wait for the first images this summer.
- m3kw9 5y agoAren’t these first images too?
- dylan604 5y agothese are test prints. they are still tweaking everything about it. you take a picture to see where you are. you analyze it, make adjustments, and take a new picture. lather, rinse, repeat. the fact that these pictures are so much clearer than the best the previous gen platform could do is worth letting everyone know this isn't suffering from the same issues as Hubble. it's working this well without being fully calibrated, so everything is nominal.
- danvk 5y agoAre the photons that land in between the instruments just lost? Why not make them cover more of the space?
- sh3rl0ck3d 5y ago
- rich_sasha 5y agoAll these images are red-ish in colour. I guess that's just an aesthetic decision here - presumably the instruments themselves are "monochromatic", plus filters are available? I'm guessing these pictures taken are single exposures, as opposed to composed with multiple filters, but since Webb works "in infrared", pictures should be "reddish". It's not even like, "infrared is red". It would be some other colour if we could see it. Or are these pictures genuinely stacked and some kind of false colour palette mapped onto them?
- nabla9 5y agoJames Webb works mostly in IR range or close to it. Near-infrared, mid-infrared. ps. Hubble was not the largest optical space telescope before Webb. It was Herschel that operated in Lagrange point (L2) 29 April 2013 - shut off on 17 June 2013. https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Missions/Herschel/(class)/image?mission=Herschel&keyword=+--%3E+Keyword&idf=+--%3E+ID&Ic=on&Ac=on&Gc=on&subm3=GO https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Missions/Herschel/(class)... What you can expect is sharper Herschel.
- rich_sasha 5y agoRight, but here, in these specific JPEG images, the "red tint" is a, hmm, red herring, right? Presumably these images are monochromatic in some IR band, and red tint added for PR reasons? The color does not convey information, I'm guessing? Or are these images genuinely stacked from a few sub-spectrum images? If so, what exactly is the hue of the colour? If it's the former, I'm always amazed how much effort goes into making space exploration eye-popping. Artists' renders of spaceships and exploding supernovae, tarted up space telescope pictures and so on.
- sbierwagen 4y agoThe NIRCAM image was at 2um, totally invisible to the human eye. Some NIRCAM filters overlap the lower end of human vision: https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-near-infrared-camera#JWSTNearInfraredCamera-Filters https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-near-infrared-camera#JWSTNe...