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Not to spoil anything, but anybody else here finding these results quite underwelming?

by matesz 4y ago

Jorchime 4y ago
Hubbles pictures were probably new to you, so in a sense this is "just" an iteration. I think you just had the perspective/expectation that this will be new as well. Maybe a bit much for the very first public results of a scientific experiment.
ceejayoz 4y ago
I think that'll depend how much you read. If you look only at the picture, it's gonna be hard to tell versus, say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field#/media/File:HubbleDeepField.800px.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field#/media/File:... for the deep-field shot or https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2007/16/2099-Image.html https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2007/16/2099-Im... for the Carina Nebula shot. If you read the details, the fact that JWST can resolve much dimmer light sources much more quickly than Hubble ever had a hope of should be fairly compelling from a "how much science can we do?" standpoint.
willis936 4y ago
A mass spec of a galaxy 13.1 Bn years ago is pretty amazing and informs new answers to the biggest questions of the universe. None of these images really stretch the legs of the instrument either. A hot jupiter is not an interesting exoplanet. It's a taste.
twojacobtwo 4y ago
I'm super curious how you could find these underwhelming. My mind is blown just scrolling across each of the images. What exactly were you expecting from them?
- matesz 4y ago
  I agree, not only pictures are amazing, but the idea that is actually works, just crazy. I ment more in the context of images taken by Hubble telescope - you know, all the hype. 25 years of work, 40mln hours worked, billions spent. Pictures are better than hubbles, but not by orders of magnitude, which is what I expected. That's why underwhelming.
nullc 4y ago
Compared to what? They surely blow away my astrophotos! :P Things like looking for IR spectra of water vapor in the atmosphere of planets outside of our solar system we can't even do from earth, since our own atmosphere is not transparent at those wavelengths due to the water in it. (ditto for oxygen). A thing they mentioned in the presentation today but mostly only in passing, was that images like that deep field image were captured with only something like a dozen hours of data collection and had better resolution and much better SNR and many more far redshift objects visible at all than an image of the same scene that took Hubble weeks of data collection to make.
omegalulw 4y ago
Have you seen overlay comparisons to Hubble? The detail is significantly improved.
zuzzurro 4y ago
I guess what I would like to get is some quick analysis showing how much further away Webb has been able to peek in the abyss close to the big bang. I assume from that POV the interesting part will be the red-shift measurement of the reddest galaxies in the deep field. So the pictures are "beautiful" per se, it's the accompanying data that is still missing

Not to spoil anything, but anybody else here finding these results quite underwelming?

by matesz 4y ago

Not to spoil anything, but anybody else here finding these results quite underwelming?

Hubbles pictures were probably new to you, so in a sense this is "just" an iteration. I think you just had the perspective/expectation that this will be new as well. Maybe a bit much for the very first public results of a scientific experiment.

ceejayoz 4y ago

I think that'll depend how much you read. If you look only at the picture, it's gonna be hard to tell versus, say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field#/media/File:HubbleDeepField.800px.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field#/media/File:... for the deep-field shot or https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2007/16/2099-Image.html https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2007/16/2099-Im... for the Carina Nebula shot. If you read the details, the fact that JWST can resolve much dimmer light sources much more quickly than Hubble ever had a hope of should be fairly compelling from a "how much science can we do?" standpoint.

willis936 4y ago

A mass spec of a galaxy 13.1 Bn years ago is pretty amazing and informs new answers to the biggest questions of the universe. None of these images really stretch the legs of the instrument either. A hot jupiter is not an interesting exoplanet. It's a taste.

twojacobtwo 4y ago

I'm super curious how you could find these underwhelming. My mind is blown just scrolling across each of the images. What exactly were you expecting from them?

matesz 4y ago
I agree, not only pictures are amazing, but the idea that is actually works, just crazy. I ment more in the context of images taken by Hubble telescope - you know, all the hype. 25 years of work, 40mln hours worked, billions spent. Pictures are better than hubbles, but not by orders of magnitude, which is what I expected. That's why underwhelming.

nullc 4y ago

Compared to what? They surely blow away my astrophotos! :P Things like looking for IR spectra of water vapor in the atmosphere of planets outside of our solar system we can't even do from earth, since our own atmosphere is not transparent at those wavelengths due to the water in it. (ditto for oxygen). A thing they mentioned in the presentation today but mostly only in passing, was that images like that deep field image were captured with only something like a dozen hours of data collection and had better resolution and much better SNR and many more far redshift objects visible at all than an image of the same scene that took Hubble weeks of data collection to make.

omegalulw 4y ago

Have you seen overlay comparisons to Hubble? The detail is significantly improved.

zuzzurro 4y ago

I guess what I would like to get is some quick analysis showing how much further away Webb has been able to peek in the abyss close to the big bang. I assume from that POV the interesting part will be the red-shift measurement of the reddest galaxies in the deep field. So the pictures are "beautiful" per se, it's the accompanying data that is still missing