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Comment by SemanticStrengh | Hacker News Reader

Why does MIRI looks so much better?

MIRI is the only instrument that works in mid-infrared, the other three work in near-infrared. It simply isn't seeing the same things.

"Better looking" is subjective, we are literally talking about your favorite color. I personally prefer the other ones, MIRI looks blurry, but really, they all have their use and they all have great scientific potential.

Because Webb is optimized for looking through the dust clouds and nebulosity, whereas we’re all used to looking at sweet nebulas from Hubble with their gorgeous dust clouds instead of just a collection of points of light with diffraction patterns.

Webb really isn’t going to be the crowd pleaser that Hubble is. And that’s okay. But I do kind of wish that was communicated better early on.

I think there will still be some stunning imagery, if a bit more ethereal, even for the lay public. We just haven't seen anything multi-spectral and color-mapped.

Here's the pillars of creation in infrared - https://esahubble.org/images/heic1501b/

My god, it’s full of stars!

Compared to the visible light shot it's easy to see why we're investing in infrared. Looks like an order of magnitude more stars are visible.

https://esahubble.org/images/heic1501a/

I just started astrophotography a few months ago and am starting to get a very vague intuition about the imaging pipelines and what things like h-alpha filters can do to amplify certain features. But (possibly because I'll likely never do it) I had no idea how much occlusion is happening in nebulous regions.

Galaxies in infrared definitely lose a little something for me.

Look at ngc891 in visible light for example: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q490345#/media/File:N891s.jpg

Here it is in a bunch of different IR wavelengths: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Images-of-NGC-891-at-var...

Quick note: The field of view of the visual spectrum image i linked above is ~4.5 arcminutes, which at the 7000ly distance to the pillars of creation mean the image spans about 9 light years from the left to the right edge. If you download the fullsize jpeg, each pixel represents about 7 billion miles, approximately the diameter of pluto's orbit. On a 96dpi monitor a star the size of our sun would be approximately 1 millionth of an inch.

Space is indeed very full for a thing synonymous with emptyness.

What I really want to see are interactive layerings showing Hubble and Webb data overlayed. Here's the stuff lit up by <clicks layer button> this light source obscured by these <clicks layer button again> dust clouds.

We need this

I've seeen a few examples of this over the years, but it's mainly been rolling over the image reveals something else. There are tons of examples of images that people have created combining data from different platforms. They make for some pretty pictures.

I have a pet project idea that I would love to work on, but I run into the typical problems of not enough time and not enough money to pursue it while chasing other projects too. But this type of interactive viewing of objects so that you can see why they glow and what causes them to be seen is one feature of the project.

While maybe not as visually spectacular, visual clarity is appealling to a large audience - just look at the 4K display sector for proof of that.

Can't wait to see a Webb deep field!

What would deep field show that these images doesn’t?

Galaxies, i.e. cool nebulosity.

Also, the deeper you look, the more redshifted it is. So eventually, Webb is capable of seeing full visible color spectrum again, if it looks far enough back in time. :)

(Additionally, for the most deepest-field objects, they're actually significantly larger in terms of angular extent than nearer objects of the same physical size due to the fact that the ancient universe was smaller: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/12/07/ask-...)

Wrong link btw

Good catch! I fixed it. Gah, I hate infinite scroll...

The release mentions that MIRI captures on a wavelength which includes both starlight and interstellar clouds, which admittedly looks awesome when put together!

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