Space In General

[Joey D]

Well... it depends on what you mean by "colourised". And, for that matter, "colour".

Satisfactorily human coloured images are only possible with instruments that record visible light. Webb doesn't do that, as it only carries near- and mid-infrared imaging sensors.

That means from reddish-orange (600nm) and out is "true" colour, but most of what it captures is simply not visible to our eyes (visible light runs out at about 700nm, while Webb runs to wavelengths almost a full order magnitude larger, at 5um). Anything from reddish-orange and in - that's all but RO of ROYGBIV - is "corrected" into visible light equivalents based on a calibration from captures of known objects previously imaged with visible light.

And of course everything is redshifted (the more redshifted the further out it gets - which is partly why IR imaging can get much further out (and therefore back in time), and that's also corrected.

What I was wondering was whether or not the pictures are delivered from the telescope looking like that, so visible light. I haven't read enough on the James Webb Telescope other than some passing Tweets where people are trying to get it renamed to really know how it works. But ya, the IR thing makes sense though. In doing a bit of Googling, it looks like they use different filters to capture the wavelength data and then they use that to process it?

 

[tarnheld]

In doing a bit of Googling, it looks like they use different filters to capture the wavelength data and then they use that to process it?

They have all kinds of ways of extracting information from the captured light, for science filtering is mostly not the way to go, as it deletes information. Usually you want to split the light into it's wavelengths, resulting in a spectrum. You can see that process and the raw Data that goes into it here:

You see on the left that the Webb raw images are monochrome (false colored from black to red to white to better convey the huge intensity range). Then a prism is placed before the detector so that the light hitting a single pixel is smeared out into several pixels horizontally -- the small image in the center. The smearing is due to different wavelengths of light so you can reconstruct the spectrum of light -- the intensity over wavelength diagrams on the right. From that spectrum you can infer a lot of information: from what kind of stuff the light was emitted and which kind of stuff it traveled through. In the image above, the two spectra of the two arcs match, so you can infer that the light is acutally coming from the same object.

But given a spectrum, you can also color an image. But since humans can't see IR, most of the Webb colored images convey other information in the colors rather than what it looks like in real life. The whole process of coloring an image is an elaborate process with the goal to remove artefacts and cram as much information while also looking stunning and pleasing.

For more info i recommend the Webb home page. If you want to deep-dive into the instruments there's the Webb User Documentation, and much more detailed info about image processing is here.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Cargo Dragon launch to the ISS tonight. This was their 30th launch so far this year, and plenty more to go. In 2021 they had 31 total for the entire year...




Booster 7 was removed from the launch pad today and made the trip back to the production site for post explosion inspection.



And Ship 24 underwent its first test shortly after.

 

[andrea]

 

[tarnheld]

This is a picture of Jupiters North Pole region, taken by JunoCam from the Juno mission and processed in dramatic false colors by Prateek Sarpal, a citizen scientist. Here are the raw images that went into it. The Juno team has a dedicated page to download raw data and encourages anyone to process these and produce those stunning images. There you can find lot's of these trippy Jupiter scenes.

Here is another view you cannot get from Earth: a look from below from the South Pole up to the great red spot. The Juno spacecraft is so close to Jupiter that the view only captures about a quarter of Jupiter's surface.

Here is a picture from Hubble which is our usual look on Jupiter from far away, where you can see half of the planet's surface:

 

[Sprite]

I love watching scientists get giddy over JWST and it’s recent release.

 

[andrea]

Webb Compare

www.webbcompare.com

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[EngieDiesel]

Russia to pull out of International Space Station

Moscow says it now wants to build its own station, ending more than 20 years of cooperation with the US.

www.bbc.com

I'm sure this has nothing to do with being criticized about the recent political posturing done by the cosmonauts up there right now. Nope, not at all.

That said, even if they don't actually pull out and bugger off to build Mir II or whatever, I feel like this is only going to increase the emphasis on getting a successor to the ISS planned and kicked off in a reasonable timeframe. The 2030 end-of-life date most likely can't be pushed back given the station's current state, and right now the plan to let the private sector figure it out doesn't seem to be going as smoothly as NASA would like it to.

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[Northstar]

Out of site out of mind, right?

And yes, I know they're supposed to de-orbit after a time, but it just seems like a horrible idea to launch even more crap into space when it's already insanely crowded. It seems like a disaster just waiting to happen and we haven't even started building The Axiom yet.

 

[sirjim73]

A sad day

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[CodeRedR51]

After a thorough inspection and some engine swaps, Booster 7 is on it's way back to the launch complex for additional testing.

 

[CodeRedR51]

First static fire on Booster 7. Single engine for now but they appear to be recycling for another go?



Edit:

 

[CodeRedR51]

Busy day at SpaceX. I missed it live but we also got a static fire from Starship 24:



And another batch of Starlink sats are safely in orbit.

 

[tarnheld]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseids are peaking currently, there are good chances to spot some shooting stars.

 

[Touring Mars]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseids are peaking currently, there are good chances to spot some shooting stars.

I remember seeing my first shooting stars one night when my cousin and I went out into his back garden to star-gaze one night.

What might have been an average kind of thing for most people, it became both a farcical and magical night - and it's now a treasured memory for me since my cousin passed away from cancer aged just 35.

We figured that standing and craning our necks in the freezing cold was a bad idea, so Richard got a couple of sun loungers out of his Dad's shed and a couple of sleeping bags from the house, and the next thing you know we are lying in the back garden like a pair of moon bathers, staring at the sky.

It didn't take long before we both witnessed the same shooting star at the same time, and both of us were totally blown away by it. And then another, and another, and another. We must have watched that meteor shower for two hours. My aunt even brought us a flask full of hot orange at some point, probably thinking we were mad.

Amateur astronomy in Scotland can be a frustrating pastime at times (since it involves, you know, being able to see the sky...) but the night sky has always been a source of magic and wonder for me, and you can't beat a good meteor shower - but discovering what a meteor shower is by actually seeing one before realising that they were even a thing - and with my absurd and wonderful older cousin Richard to boot - is something I'll never forget.

 

[Dennisch]

It's also Superman, I mean Super Moon night, and that might ruin the experience a bit.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Will update this post, I have a feeling they're not done yet today.

Edit: they appear to be finished for today.

 

[CodeRedR51]

This never gets old.

10th landing for this booster.

 

[CodeRedR51]

After its long duration static fire, Booster 7 made its way back to the assembly building today to have the inner 13 Raptor engines reinstalled.

 

[Denur]

It's also Superman, I mean Super Moon night, and that might ruin the experience a bit.

I think I saw my first shooting star last night. It was a little after 4 am Amsterdam time, while looking east (some 45deg up) and standing in the moon's shadow. It was a very short, but clear flash, much brighter than the stars in my field of view. But because it was only a flash and not a streak, I'm a little doubtful, unless the thing was coming straight at me.

 

[tarnheld]

I think I saw my first shooting star last night. It was a little after 4 am Amsterdam time, while looking east (some 45deg up) and standing in the moon's shadow. It was a very short, but clear flash, much brighter than the stars in my field of view. But because it was only a flash and not a streak, I'm a little doubtful, unless the thing was coming straight at me.

That could well be a perseid coming at you head-on! The constellation of Perseus is right where you looked, see here: https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/night/netherlands/amsterdam
The perseid shooting stars seem to radiate from there since the earth goes right through the comet dust in this direction. So the streaks are not that pronounced as you have noticed.

 

[Joey D]

We had a big boom over Utah today:

Meteor confirmed as source of loud boom heard over Utah, Idaho, Wyoming

KUTV CBS 2 provides local news, weather forecasts, traffic updates, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Salt Lake City and nearby towns and communities in the Great Salt Lake area, including Jordan Meadows, Millcreek, Murray...

kutv.com

I was sitting in my living room and it was so loud that it shook my windows.

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[CodeRedR51]

Edit: Artemis I is GO for launch.

 

[EngieDiesel]

In case anyone needs a refresher on "How do I space rocket".