JWST images

[Sunshine]

Something is causing me a headache, it involves the propagation of light through space and time, light from a particular object let’s say an early galaxy 10 billion light years away as spied by Webb. 
 

let’s assume for instance that we are seeing a particular galaxy in it’s early stages, not yet a spiral but a blobby mess of stars 10 billion LY distant. This galaxy has evolved over the course of the next five billion years into a familiar spiral galaxy which we all know, now here is when my headache began. If we image this same galaxy as it was 10 billion years ago (blobby mess) what happened to its light (image) as it has evolved over the next five billion years into a spiral? assuming the same galaxy still exists.
 

Is it because as space expands, it’s image as it was five billion year more evolved has not reached us yet? or maybe I’m about to answer my own question by assuming that the universe was a much smaller place when the galaxy was young therefore as space expands its newer light will not reach us as the expansion of space will not allow for its new image to reach us. Kind of like the ever lengthening hallway in those scary movies, as one walks down the hallway it keeps getting longer (que the eerie music). 

Edited July 15, 2022 by Sunshine

[Xilman]

3 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Something is causing me a headache, it involves the propagation of light through space and time, light from a particular object let’s say an early galaxy 10 billion light years away as spied by Webb. 

...

Is it because as space expands, it’s image as it was five billion year more evolved has not reached us yet? or maybe I’m about to answer my own question by assuming that the universe was a much smaller place when the galaxy was young therefore as space expands its newer light will not reach us as the expansion of space will not allow for its new image to reach us.

Got it in one except that its light has not yet reached us.

You can see this effect on a much smaller scale, inside the solar system even. We see Jupiter as it was about an hour ago because that is how long takes for light to travel from the planet to the Earth. Jupiter is evolving (it has weather, it rotates, satellites are in orbit around it, perhaps casting their shadows on the planet, and so on) and will have changed its appearance "now" compared with how we see it "now". (Simultaneity is a tricky concept in a universe where the speed of light is finite and constant.) Wait for an hour for that new light to reach us and we will see a Jupiter which has evolved by a further hour.

[markse68]

It hasn’t reached us yet and may never I guess. And people in those distant galaxies “today” with their version of JWST looking this way would see our patch as it was 10 billion years ago. 

A very convenient side effect of this expansion thing is that those very distant galaxies are visible at all- at such great distance you’d expect them to be too small to see but because the universe was so much smaller back then, their image is stretched and we can still see them. So up to certain point galaxies get smaller the further away they are as you'd expect but then conveniently they start to appear bigger!

[IB20]

A nice image of Jupiter’s ring here. 😃

[Gfamily]

1 hour ago, IB20 said:

A nice image of Jupiter’s ring here. 😃

Credit should be given to Judy Schmidt who processed the data.  https://twitter.com/SpaceGeck/status/1547854886657675265?s=20&t=mJdFKM4j8oQ-OR6IoqEAzQ

 

She isn't sure why she's getting the double edge on the right. 

[bomberbaz]

Link to Webb's pictures which are all downloadable. Sorry if this is a repeat.

Webb's First Images & Data | Flickr

[bomberbaz]

7 hours ago, IB20 said:

A nice image of Jupiter’s ring here. 😃

Very nice indeed, here it is again taken with a different camera I guess.

Image Galleries Webb/NASA

[Zermelo]

https://xkcd.com/2645/

 

[Zermelo]

Not sure if this has been posted yet, "What's next for the James Webb Space Telescope?" -

https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-whats-next

[IB20]

[wimvb]

10 hours ago, IB20 said:

You get what you pay for.

[wimvb]

Fyi, todays apod is a composite of Hubble, Subaru and JWST data. UV to IR spectral range.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220718.html

[tomato]

Quite a feat to combine data from all three sources, but to me the result looks oddly clipped and over processed. However, I’m applying my views on what an image ‘should’ look like, and this one is well outside the limits of my experience.

[Xilman]

Aesthetics apart, the image shows very clearly where the warm dust (predominantly red) and hot young stars (mostly blue) are mainly located within the galaxies.

[tomato]

Quite right, it’s about the science not pretty pictures.

[StuartT]

Here is my go at some of the JWST data (downloaded from the MAST portal). This is a comb of six filters from the NIRCAM. I used pixel math to map the filters (roughly) to the RGB channels as follows

R: 2*f470n + f444w
G: f335m + 2*f200w
B: f187n + 2*f090w

 

[johnfosteruk]

41 minutes ago, StuartT said:

Here is my go at some of the JWST data (downloaded from the MAST portal). This is a comb of six filters from the NIRCAM. I used pixel math to map the filters (roughly) to the RGB channels as follows

R: 2*f470n + f444w
G: f335m + 2*f200w
B: f187n + 2*f090w

 

That's nice.

I downloaded the Stephan's Quintet data last night - nice big files aren't they.  I'll be having a play with them tonight.

[bomberbaz]

11 hours ago, johnfosteruk said:

That's nice.

I downloaded the Stephan's Quintet data last night - nice big files aren't they.  I'll be having a play with them tonight.

Make sure you let us see your results.  I am looking forward to it. 

@StuartT, your "go" at the carina nebula is superb. 

[IB20]

Some nice images of Messier 74 yesterday from JWST.

Credits: @gbrammer and Judy Schmidt.

[wimvb]

A bit different from the Hubble image

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-74

[Gfamily]

FYI - the M74 images are from a proposal to study star forming locations in nearby galaxies, so there's probably huge amounts more to come.

https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/phase2-public/2107.pdf 

19 JWST targets, with data to be combined with HST,VLT and ALMA observations

 

[wimvb]

Btw, the new astro gadget to have

https://www.astrobin.com/fnu3de/?nc=all

if you’re handy with a hacksaw and hand drill you can probably make on for a Newtonian.

[The Lazy Astronomer]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

Btw, the new astro gadget to have

https://www.astrobin.com/fnu3de/?nc=all

if you’re handy with a hacksaw and hand drill you can probably make on for a Newtonian.

I wondered how long it would be before 6 spiked stars were the new 'in' thing!

[StuartT]

2 hours ago, wimvb said:

Btw, the new astro gadget to have

https://www.astrobin.com/fnu3de/?nc=all

if you’re handy with a hacksaw and hand drill you can probably make on for a Newtonian.

 

58 minutes ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

I wondered how long it would be before 6 spiked stars were the new 'in' thing!

why on earth would anyone want to create diffraction spikes?! Usually the problem is how to get rid of them in post-processing!

[Gfamily]

22 minutes ago, StuartT said:

why on earth would anyone want to create diffraction spikes?! Usually the problem is how to get rid of them in post-processing!

Indeed.  One of my first thoughts when looking at the Carina Nebula First Light image, was - ooh, that looks like Christmas wrapping paper!