The James Webb Space Telescope

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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is scheduled to launch no earlier than December 24, following a two-day delay, with a critical launch window extending to January 6 due to gravitational concerns. Enthusiasm is high among the community, with many eagerly anticipating the scientific data it will provide, despite concerns over the lengthy wait and significant costs associated with the project. Initial observing time has been allocated for various proposals, including a major project called Cosmos Web, which aims to capture detailed images of the early universe. The mission's success is seen as a gamble, with many previous missions sacrificed for JWST funding, raising questions about the return on investment. As the launch approaches, excitement and nervousness are palpable, with many setting alarms to witness the event live.
  • #391
Side side with Hubble on the left from 2014
I turned on all the lights off in the office so I could see this in all its glory.
Wow.

1666268948780.png
 
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  • #392
sophiecentaur said:
Weird.
Perhaps I am reading tea leaves. The hexagonal pattern is obviously from the optics (likely the mirror shape) but to my eye the green shape is rotated 30o relatve to the red one. I having trouble figuring a plausability argument for that, either diffraction or refraction. One also should be cognizant that these are false colors.
 
  • #393
But why aren’t all (bright) star images like it?
 
  • #394
sophiecentaur said:
But why aren’t all (bright) star images like it?
My best guess (I just thought of it) is that it looks like the internal "camera" reflection from either the bright object in field or perhaps one just out of field off axis. I don't know enough about Webb optics to be any more definitive
 
  • #395
hutchphd said:
My best guess (I just thought of it) is that it looks like the internal "camera" reflection from either the bright object in field or perhaps one just out of field off axis. I don't know enough about Webb optics to be any more definitive
I tried blowing up some of the other objects but they all were too blurred.
 
  • #396
Is there a NASA source to get such images with full resolution?
 
  • #397
pinball1970 said:
I tried blowing up some of the other objects
Did you borrow Peter's blaster again? I thought we already had "the talk" about that... :wink:

1666288436083.png

https://www.deviantart.com/nocturnbros/art/Marvin-the-Martian-invades-DEATH-BATTLE-683673659
 
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  • #398
anorlunda said:
Is there a NASA source to get such images with full resolution?
The image is from the NASA site. I have been looking at other images and cannot see anything like this.
Dust has been mentioned, if it is fairly evenly distributed then could the rings which look almost concentric cause that effect via some sort diffraction?
 
  • #401
pinball1970 said:
some sort diffraction?
But there are no coloured edges and you don't get diffraction effects from massive objects (i.e. out in space). Diffraction would have to be taking place the telescope optics and would apply to many images of the appropriate brightness.

The explanation that it's due to ripples in dust, caused by regular pulses of light certainly gets my vote. 1. Regular pattern. 2. No colour effects. 3. The fact that it's a rare effect indicates some very high energy involved.
 
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  • #402
https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.10074
with a nice write-up by John Timmer at
https://arstechnica.com/science/202...ed-from-galaxies-11-billion-light-years-away/

New Webb images illuminate the formation of a galaxy cluster​

A team of researchers is publishing a paper based on new images taken by the Webb Space Telescope. The images reveal a dense concentration of matter in the early Universe, potentially indicating early stages in the formation of a galaxy cluster. And thanks to the spectrograph present, Webb was able to confirm that several galaxies previously imaged by Hubble were also part of the cluster. It even tracked the flow of gas ejected by the largest galaxy present.
image-11-800x924.png
 
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  • #403
Thread is closed temporarily for Moderation (and possible thread split to break off the side-discussion about diffraction effects in telescopes)...
 
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  • #405
https://esawebb.org/news/weic2219/?lang :
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has revealed the once-hidden features of the protostar within the dark cloud L1527 with its Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), providing insight into the formation of a new star. These blazing clouds within the Taurus star-forming region are only visible in infrared light, making it an ideal target for Webb.
weic2219a.jpg
 
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  • #406
They have fixed the issue with MIRI apparently. Nothing on the NASA site though.
 
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  • #407
Analysis of micrometeorite impacts shows that the May event was likely really bad luck and should stay an outlier instead of a regular occurrence.

 
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  • #408
Which one of those two guys actually threw the test brick? It would certainly be a CV item for him.
 
  • #409
Make your own JWST.

 
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  • #413
I don't understand why they felt compelled to make a video of a still image/

"Better"? It's in different wavelengths. Is green better than red? Or blue?
 
  • #414
Vanadium 50 said:
"Better"? It's in different wavelengths. Is green better than red? Or blue?
Resolution, detail.
 
  • #415
Uranus is pretty featureless. The rings seem to come out better, but that doesn;t surprise me in the IR.
 
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  • #416
Vanadium 50 said:
Uranus is pretty featureless. The rings seem to come out better, but that doesn;t surprise me
…please let me resist temptation for bad joke …
 
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  • #417
The opportunities for Uranus jokes are...ahem...endless. And besides jokes, there is...inuendo.

Should I go on?
 
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  • #418
Vanadium 50 said:
I don't understand why they felt compelled to make a video of a still image/
Standard way of getting good planetary images. They aren't short of light with a big scope (or even a home one) so a large set of sequential images allows software to reject bad ones, re-position the selected images and then stack them. It's better than plain stacking of a few long exposures. Also, the contrast range will be a lot les for a planet than for galaxies and nebulae so it's a very different job altogether. "It's a very different job.":kiss:!!
There are pros and cons about flyby images vs Hubble images. Hubble can spot changes where a brilliant flyby image just shows things as they are - once in decades.
 
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  • #419
No, what I don'y understand is why they took a picture and then put the picture on Youtube,. Why not just post the picture, a la APOD. Or is that so 20th century?
 
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  • #420
Vanadium 50 said:
No, what I don'y understand is why they took a picture and then put the picture on Youtube,. Why not just post the picture, a la APOD. Or is that so 20th century?
Oh, right. That sort of presentation is reckoned to be more sexy, I think. Screen saver stuff. But the image is not very special in the first place.
 

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