Loser Araysar
Chief Russia Correspondent / Stock Pals CEO
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I cant tell if this serious. All I see is someone turning up the gamma on same image and then dropping a couple lens flares into it
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The Astronomy Thread
- Thread starter Araxen
- Start date
I cant tell if this serious. All I see is someone turning up the gamma on same image and then dropping a couple lens flares into it
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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I think it's just a buzzkill that we are all pumped for these "amazing" new images they've been teasing, and its just literally like someone put a filter on the 30 year old photo, lol. And I think it's probably disappointing because it just settles that our tech will only get so good.
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Brahma
Obi-Bro Kenobi-X
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I am looking at it more along the lines of that Hubble took weeks to get that photo. Imagine what we will see when the JWST does a deep field for weeks as opposed to DAYS.
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Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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I agree that they should've released two pics at the start, one that was a "deep field" pic and one that was a "near field" pic like looking at Alpha Centauri or Andromeda. I'm just a layman but my understanding is that JWST is designed to see very far away objects instead of "nearby" objects like Alpha Centauri, so it might produce images that are inferior to what we see today. But a pic that beats Best image of Alpha Centauri A and B would be cool.
Over the last decade or so when JWST hits the news I've repeatedly asked the question "Is this just a machine to generate desktop background images for nerds or are there practical applications?" and the answer I've consistently gotten is that if nerds can see what the universe was like near its creation they may uncover physics cheat codes. So I view JWST as in the same category as the Large Hardon Collider in that its purpose is to figure out warp or dupe exploits in this universe. I don't really buy that explanation but the reason the astronomy nerds are in tears over this JWST image is because it confirms they can see further into the past. Here's to hoping it helps move science forward.
I also view the JWST as being imminently obsolete given how much shit we're about to be able to move into our solar system with SpaceX's Starship. The 30 year in production, 500 moving part Rube Goldberg machine that is the JWST is going to be a joke compared to whatever monstrously large yet simple space telescope that Starship will be able to just dumptruck into Earth's Langrange Point.
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Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Zaara
I'm With HER ♀
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They are amazing. We went from a 100 hour/10 day exposure to a 12 hour one that has quadruple the visual information. You do realize that space is space and a view like this is going to look 'the same' no matter what we use because these are fucking galaxies, right? That they don't move around or change shape because they are celestial bodies of such vastness that you're not living on a time scale to see any appreciable difference in the object's evolution. You're looking billions of years into the past at galaxies that no longer exist, turned into gravity-bent arcs of light. You're seeing things of such vastness and denseness that they are warping time around it. Who would've thought that vast improved visualization technology means more brightness, more contrast, more pixels, more visual information- not some crazy 'additional' information you randomly decided to come to expect, despite the fact that the majority of these images and the rainbow compilations of Hubble + Chandra and the like are painstakingly constructed collages of information garnered from spectrums your eyeballs have no capacity to render. Shit like this is the most profound visual evidence of our place in the universe, a view unthinkable to 10,000 years and billions of humans who lived and died believing they lived on the back of a turtle or floating in a giant sea, and you're mad they didn't invent a spectrum outside visual/infrared/UV to make iT lOoK coOleR.
You're looking at an image that neatly quantifies your utter cosmic insignificance, an image that hundreds of geniuses dedicated their entire lives to being able to create, using technology and mathematics you could not begin to comprehend, a shred of space that you perceive as a darkness 'a few pixels' across turned into a portrait of light and time showing you a complete visual perspective on the law of existence itself, and you're feeling buzzkillt because the first image drop is something you recognize. Go eat a hamburger and jerk off.
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Cybsled
Avatar of War Slayer
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The far side of the moon would allow the
Moon itself to act as a shield to block radio transmissions from Earth, which can interfere with radio telescope observations
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Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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I don't know what is gained from radio telescopes, but my guess is that the next big space telescope will relate to nearby asteroids. Identifying high-value asteroids or asteroids that risk space missions, specifically.
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Brahma
Obi-Bro Kenobi-X
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I thought this also. Isn't this just the nature of the photos from the JWST using the honeycomb format?
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Kiroy
Marine Biologist
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