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“Allowing the data to show through with color” The data that comes into the sensors is in infrared, which is beyond the narrow band of colors that humans can see. We use lots of methods to see outside this band, of course, for example X-rays, which we capture and view in a way we can see by having them strike a film or digital sensor calibrated to detect them. It’s the same for the Webb.
“The telescope is not really a point-and-shoot camera. So it’s not like we can just take a picture and there we have it, right? It’s a scientific instrument. So it was designed first and foremost to produce scientific results,” explained Joe DePasquale, of the Space Telescope Science Institute, in a NASA podcast.
What it detects is not really data that humans can parse, let alone directly perceive. For one thing, the dynamic range is off the charts — that means the difference in magnitude between the darkest and lightest points. There’s basically nothing darker than the infinite blankness of space and not a lot brighter than an exploding sun. But if you have an image that includes both, taken over a period of hours, you end up with enormous deltas between dark and light in the data. Now, our eyes and brains have pretty good dynamic range, but this blows them out of the water — and more importantly, there’s no real way to show it. “It basically looks like a black image with some white specks in it, because there’s such a huge dynamic range,” said DePasquale. “We have to do something called stretch the data, and that is to take the pixel values and sort of reposition them, basically, so that you can see all the detail that’s there.”
Before you object in any way, first, be it known that this is basically how all imagery is created — a selection of the spectrum is cut out and adapted for viewing by our very capable but also limited visual system. Because we can’t see in infrared and there’s no equivalent of red, blue and green up in those frequencies, the image analysts have to do complicated work that combines objective use of the data to subjective understanding of perception and indeed beauty. Colors may correspond to wavelengths in a similar order, or perhaps be divided up to more logically highlight regions that “look” similar but put out wildly different radiation.
“We like to in the, you know, imaging community in astrophotography like to refer to this process as ‘representative color,’ instead of what it used to be called, are still many people call ‘false color images.’ I dislike the term ‘false color,’ because it has this connotation that we’re faking it, or it’s, you know, this isn’t really what it looks like; the data is the data. We’re not going in there and applying, like painting color on to the image. We are respecting the data from beginning to end. And we’re allowing the data to show through with color.” If you look at the image above, the two views of the nebula, consider that they were taken from the same angle, at more or less the same time, but using different instruments that capture different segments of the IR spectrum. Though ultimately both must be shown in RGB, the different objects and features found by inspecting higher wavelengths can be made visible by this kind of creative yet scientifically rigorous color-assignment method.
And of course when the data is more useful as data than as a visual representation, there are even more abstract ways of looking at it.
I'm forever wondering why NASA doesn't have images/videos of our planet in its entirety and its neighborhood space with planets everywhere The videos we see of Earth are taken by aircraft cameras and not ISS cameras as they tell us but ISS cameras can pick up a bit of what goes on around the planet
This image is wonderful but it is made in their imaging shop by their artists James Web telescope is not able to capture images of anything the way a cheap camera can do It captures infrared radiation taken over a certain amount of time (long exposure) then that data gets analyzed by their computer software into codes/numbers that represent gradients of color and texture Its too complicated, but the end product looks like this
Every time the area is watched, nothing ever changes?? Light may take long time to reach the mirrors of JWeb but gasses don't stay still forever If that was true, nothing would ever happen in this universe Light doesn't travel like some locomotive (i've said that) and it doesn't carry images of anything It just can't do that What it does is, it creates waves of radiation/energy/heat that can be interpreted any-which-way you wish Sorry for disagreeing with you
I use to believe everything NASA would tell us, but now I have serious doubts
it looks like an erupting volcano under the sea or, a female Godzilla grabbing a bird Can you see it's claws? oh, I can see more sea serpents in the background
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The videos we see of Earth are taken by aircraft cameras and not ISS cameras as they tell us but ISS cameras can pick up a bit of what goes on around the planet
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The data that comes into the sensors is in infrared, which is beyond the narrow band of colors that humans can see. We use lots of methods to see outside this band, of course, for example X-rays, which we capture and view in a way we can see by having them strike a film or digital sensor calibrated to detect them. It’s the same for the Webb.
“The telescope is not really a point-and-shoot camera. So it’s not like we can just take a picture and there we have it, right? It’s a scientific instrument. So it was designed first and foremost to produce scientific results,” explained Joe DePasquale, of the Space Telescope Science Institute, in a NASA podcast.
What it detects is not really data that humans can parse, let alone directly perceive. For one thing, the dynamic range is off the charts — that means the difference in magnitude between the darkest and lightest points. There’s basically nothing darker than the infinite blankness of space and not a lot brighter than an exploding sun. But if you have an image that includes both, taken over a period of hours, you end up with enormous deltas between dark and light in the data.
Now, our eyes and brains have pretty good dynamic range, but this blows them out of the water — and more importantly, there’s no real way to show it.
“It basically looks like a black image with some white specks in it, because there’s such a huge dynamic range,” said DePasquale. “We have to do something called stretch the data, and that is to take the pixel values and sort of reposition them, basically, so that you can see all the detail that’s there.”
Before you object in any way, first, be it known that this is basically how all imagery is created — a selection of the spectrum is cut out and adapted for viewing by our very capable but also limited visual system. Because we can’t see in infrared and there’s no equivalent of red, blue and green up in those frequencies, the image analysts have to do complicated work that combines objective use of the data to subjective understanding of perception and indeed beauty. Colors may correspond to wavelengths in a similar order, or perhaps be divided up to more logically highlight regions that “look” similar but put out wildly different radiation.
“We like to in the, you know, imaging community in astrophotography like to refer to this process as ‘representative color,’ instead of what it used to be called, are still many people call ‘false color images.’ I dislike the term ‘false color,’ because it has this connotation that we’re faking it, or it’s, you know, this isn’t really what it looks like; the data is the data. We’re not going in there and applying, like painting color on to the image. We are respecting the data from beginning to end. And we’re allowing the data to show through with color.”
If you look at the image above, the two views of the nebula, consider that they were taken from the same angle, at more or less the same time, but using different instruments that capture different segments of the IR spectrum. Though ultimately both must be shown in RGB, the different objects and features found by inspecting higher wavelengths can be made visible by this kind of creative yet scientifically rigorous color-assignment method.
And of course when the data is more useful as data than as a visual representation, there are even more abstract ways of looking at it.
h)ttps://techcrunch.com/2022/07/12/how-james-we
bb-space-telescope-jwst-sends-images-to-earth/