What are the true colors of images from the James Webb Space Telescope?

[Admin]

We explore the true colors of images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to see what the cosmos really looks like.

What are the true colors of images from the James Webb Space Telescope? : Read more

 

[iMaxPlanck]

So basically, the JWST images make a nebula look like a solid 9, only to swipe right and later discover the nebula is actually just a 6.

 

[AboveAndBeyond]

> What would they look like if we could see them with our own eyes, instead of through a telescope?
> "The quickest answer is, we don't know," said Alyssa Pagan

This is just plain wrong. You can plug the visual wavelength spectrum of any light source into the CIE Standard Observer (which dates to decades ago) and calculate its chromaticity coordinates, from which you can get the hue and saturation of the source.

The problem with ionization nebulae like the so-called Pillars of Creation (or planetary nebulae like the Southern Ring Nebula) is that the light is produced by fluorescing gases, meaning it has an emission line spectrum, which screws up the color reproduction when regular RGB filters are used. (Ask any photographer about trying to get accurate color under fluorescent lights.) For example, H-alpha (from hydrogen) has a wavelength which makes it fall in the middle of the red channel so it is strongly recorded, whereas H-beta, which is often stronger (as in the Blue Snowball), falls in the gap between the blue and green channels and is mostly missed; the reproduced colors are then an artifact and not accurate.

 

[Catastrophe]

Colour is a personal visual reaction to electromagnetic radiation of a range of wavelengths. It is a description made by an individual dictated by how (s)he has been taught, usually in childhood.

It is assumed that we all experience the same when observing the same EM wavelength. A similar experience is likely, for most people, but not necessarily true. For example, consider colour blindness.

We can assume, but never know absolutely, what it is like to be in some other person's nervous system - or in the nervous system of some other animal, come to that.

It is wider still. We cannot hear much of what a dog hears. What we receive through our own senses is individual to us personally, although there must be sufficient similarity to facilitate mutual understanding.
What we see as "green" another might experience as "red". All that matters is how we are taught to name reaction to that EM wavelength. It is the wavelength that is objective (measurable), not the subjective reaction.

Cat

 

[Classical Motion]

Using eye sight, all one would see is a little dark red light, and very rarefied. The universe would be very dark.

Check out the bandwidth of visible light. Check out the bandwidth of UV and x-ray light. Now check out the bandwidth of IR light. IR is skinny light.

 

[AboveAndBeyond]

> What we see as "green" another might experience as "red".

Not so. People with normal color vision all agree on color matches throughout 3-D color space. That's why it's possible to construct a standard observer.

There's no reason to suppose it's all some uniquely "personal" experience. What you see as red is what I see as red, and vice versa.

People with one of the several varieties of color blindness were actually helpful in constructing the current model of color vision, as they involve the loss of one or two of the varieties of cones, making it possible to more easily determine the spectral sensitivity of the remaining one(s).

Color is measurable (colorimetry), not subjective.

 

[Classical Motion]

Color is the length of light. Or length of EM emission and it comes with a duration. Some call it the frequency. But it is actually 1/2 wavelength, not a full wave length. Light only expresses as a frequency when detected. The propagation is a duty cycle not a frequency. But our detectors bounce like a bell. And most think the propagation is a frequency. And a huge mis-understanding of shift. Light is not a vibration like sound and media waves. The chunks of emission take no time to emit. Emission is instant. Every emission has ONE point in space. Not a line of emission like sound. Or vibration.

And it's not a Doppler shift, it's a duty cycle shift. And with a moving emitter........the signal is space width modulated.

The emitted lengths remain constant, unless the detector is moving. Only the space between the lengths, changes, with emitter motion.

We have no idea of what we are looking at, let alone how it all started.

All modern theory will change when light is realized. Until that happens.......it's hollywood possibilities.

 

[Catastrophe]

AAB

Color is measurable (colorimetry), not subjective.

Perception occurs within one's brain. That is subjective.
Measurement occurs externally. Of course, measurements are external. The wavelengths may be the same. I am addressing the effects those same wavelengths produce within the brains of different individuals. Unless one can exist within some other person's brain, these results cannot be other than completely subjective.

Examples are difficult, but consider two words that sound the same. Take words which have alternative meanings, but sound exactly the same like saw and sore. If asked to define such words, only when hearing them, and without making any other distinction than sound, one has no clue whatsoever whether the word intended is 'saw' as in the cutting tool, 'saw' as in 'had seen' or sore as in 'inflamed'. The sounds - "wavelengths" - are the same, just as with colour, but the effects within the brain of the hearer - which meaning the hearer attributes to the sound of the word(s) are very different. Analogies are not perfect, but I think this comes close. The wavelengths are the same in each case, but the interpretation within the hearers' brains may be completely different = subjective.

Hope this helps,

Cat