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All these images are red-ish in colour. I guess that's just an aesthetic decision here - presumably the instruments themselves are "monochromatic", plus filters

All 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 ago
James 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 ago
  Right, 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 ago
    The 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...

nabla9 5y ago

James 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 ago
Right, 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 ago
  The 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...