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Posted on 08/07/2022 7:07:07 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Image developers on the Webb team are tasked with turning the telescope’s infrared image data into some of the most vivid views of the cosmos we’ve ever had. They assign various infrared wavelengths to colors on the visible spectrum, the familiar reds, blues, yellows, etc.
Longer infrared waves are assigned redder colors, and the shortest infrared wavelengths are assigned bluer colors. (Blue and violet light has the shortest wavelengths within the visible spectrum, while red has the longest.) The process is called chromatic ordering, and the spectrum is split into as many colors as the team needs to capture the full spectrum of light depicted in the image.
The chromatic ordering depends too on what elements are being imaged. When working with narrow-band wavelengths in optical light—oxygen, ionized hydrogen, and sulfur—the latter two both emit in red. So the hydrogen might get shifted to green visible light, in order to give the viewer more information.
When telescope images are being assembled, image processors work with instrument scientists to decide which features of a given object should be highlighted in the image: its piping hot gas, perhaps, or a cool dusty tail.
In the case of the sweeping shot of the Carina Nebula’s cosmic cliffs, different filters captured the ionized blue gas and red dust. In initial passes at the nebula image, the gas obscured the dust’s structure, scientists asked the image processing team to “tone down the gas”
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
If your eyes can’t see it, it’s invisible. The most detailed images of nebula are captured in hydrogen alpha, oxygen III, and sulfa wavelengths, not visible to the human eye. The results are assigned a color and then stacked to create a visible false color image. Most of us amateur Astro photographers use the Hubble palette.
Are the Colors in Webb Telescope Images ‘Fake’?
“Fake” is such an ugly word. Can’t we just call it “enhanced”? /s
“This freeper has been saying this for years now. 95% artist enhancement, 5% true data.”
Whatever data they receive is “true” data.
It is all true data. It does have to be presented in a format you can actually see.
Think about how here on Earth, even with modern digital cameras (which also do image correction, just on the fly so you don't realize it) but even with that, it's sometimes difficult to take a good picture without it being washed out from too much light, or too dim, or have too much contrast. Now imagine trying to take the same picture in space or on another planet where amounts of light totally different from Earth.
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“I am always struck by how the macrocosm and microcosm can seem similar”
I also have observed that.
Back to the article, paint by number, scientifically:)
Isaac Schultz is obviously a liberal arts major.
Yes. They are fake.
It’s not a question of trust, at least not in this case. I’m not an astrophotographer, but I understand what they’re doing when they enhance their pictures. Sure, it’s manipulation, but with our modern digital technology, we are able to see an astronomical object in different wavelengths of light. we can manipulate the image to enhance different features and see what we normally couldn’t see. It’s a great research tool.
We couldn’t do these things with film photography. It had its limitations.
We can see the same objects in different wavelengths of light, reveal different features and learn even more about that object.
Even in observational astronomy, we sometimes observe through the eyepiece of our telescopes by using filters in front of the eyepiece; different colored ones for looking at the planets brings out different details.
We can partially cancel out light pollution to make fainter galaxies and nebula brighter against the night sky.
However we do it, someone like me who just likes to look through his telescope, or people who use advanced amateur equipment to use their telescopes to the greatest capability, to something like the Webb Telescope, we use the best equipment and techniques we have to learn about what’s out there. 🔭
Well said!
And you said it with a lot less words than I!
Great way to to show it! Some presentations are better than others.
I understand all of that
I worked on he Webb. I’m just glad we got it right
And they are never done testing, because they never assume they know it all.
“I am always struck by how the macrocosm and the microcosm can seem similar.”
Yup—This is one area where science remains totally baffled.
It may be that we are talking about some sort of fractal universe—suggestive of the idea of a holographic universe—or perhaps an intelligent universe (whatever that means).
Today’s humans do not like to admit it, but we have a lot in common with isolated savages staring in wonder at a crashed airplane on their island.
Lotta weasel wording it what these “image processors” do. Trust us because we are Science!
Amazing ‘space telescope image’ was actually a slice of chorizo
https://nypost.com/2022/08/05/amazing-space-telescope-image-was-actually-a-slice-of-chorizo/
Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope! That thing still freaks me out. A case of the the big reveal of the monster making it even more terrifying.
I just wanted to add this:
The pupils in our eyes open to a maximum of 7mm diameter. A little smaller as we get older. THAT is how we see the night sky.
Through say, a 3” dia. telescope, we see brighter images, and we can see what was previously invisible to our eyes. The 3” lens now becomes a 3” “pupil” allowing us deeper into the sky. A bigger telescope becomes a bigger pupil, and so on.
What our eyes can’t show us are the true representations of a faint object in the sky. Our eyes can only collect the photons that are are entering them at that moment, at 7 mm or less.
Using a telescope, or a telephoto lens with a camera attached and the SHUTTER LEFT OPEN on a mount accurately tracking the object being photographed, only then can enough photons be collected to get a more accurate picture of the object.
Not only does the object appear brighter on film or in the digital image, it can also have colors, if enough photons are collected.
Naturally occurring colors, not manipulated.
Congratulations! You all did a great job!!!
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