[palmtree3000]

Gravitational lensing. From the description[0]:

Other features include the prominent arcs in this field. The powerful gravitational field of a galaxy cluster can bend the light rays from more distant galaxies behind it, just as a magnifying glass bends and warps images. Stars are also captured with prominent diffraction spikes, as they appear brighter at shorter wavelengths.

[0] https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2022/news-2...

[samstave]

So, would that mean that the gravitational lensing over how-ever-many-light-years is ALSO coupled with the convex/cave aspect of the pico-adjusting of the JWT 'lens' such that even our JWT's pico-adjustments affect the NORMAL of the photons to the image?

Can this be adjusted for?

Wouldnt the pico-arc of the overall array affect the image output due to the distances involved such that we receive "false gravitational lensing, simply based on distance from the sensor"

?

I wonder if a more precise version(s) of the hex lenses could be made such that they can 'normal-ize' on a much more refined basis.

I know that each JWT is already capable of mico-flexes to each cell... but if we can develope an even further refinement (Moores law on the JWTs hex lenses resolution) we will be able to make thousands of images with varying the the normalization to each receiving area and comparing image quality.

Also, I am sure there are folks who know the reflective characteristics of photons from each wavelength that would allow for orientations for each wavelength.

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Do ALL 'light' wavelengths, particles bounce off the reflector materials in the same way? - meaning do infra waves/photons bounce in the exact same way as some other wavelength with the exact same orientation of the sensor?

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Do they do any 'anti-gravitational-lensing' correction calcs to 'anti-bend' a photons path to us to 're-normalize' the path that we should have seen?

Whats the current science behind such?

[qwertywert_]

The gravitational lensing matches exactly how it looked in Hubble's deep field overlay, so I would guess no the JWST lens is not causing any "false" gravitational lensing? If that's what you are asking.

[samstave]

Thanks!

I worded that poorly ;

Wouldn't one be able to adjust the perceived path of the photon after time, to adjust for re-normalizing the path of the photon based on the understanding of the gravitational arc imposed on such -- meaning the astro equivalent of "ZOOM. ENHANCE!" :-)

[8note]

Depending on the orientation, you wouldn't have the right pixels to put for the angle of view from straight on.

Eg, you'd normally see the side view of an object, but the lensing gets you the top and bottom views

[qwertywert_]

Ah right, good question yes it seems like it could be possible..

[samstave]

The normalization I was thinking of was :

Lets assume you have a 'straight' vector of line of sight pointing your Earthly-Bound-Lens [hubble/jswt/whatever] at the object of interest.

you also have an idea through previous observations of gallaxies on the line of sight, which will have gravitational impact on the trajectory of the photons of interest...

the arrival photon's wiggle represents a wobble in time to get to earth. Meaning it changed phase multiple times between our sensor receiving it, and its origin.

If one could look at the path and the grav-lenses it went through, one may be able to extrapolate a more clear picture at various distances(times)....??? /r/NoStupidQuestions

( I am picturing a straight shot - but the photon traveled between many other celstials - and those

[samstave]

I'm convinced we are receiving "Wobbly Photons"

Meaning that no matter waht, when we speak of gravitational lenses, we could, usting JWST account for the "wobble" of a photon, nased on the accurate knowledge of where a body was, via measuring through multiples of JSWT observations... (ideally through actually multiple JWSTs, in differnt locations)

The idea being that if we can triangulate a more precice location between earth [A] and galaxy [N] - set of all galaxies/bodies/whatever,

We may be able to calculate the influence of gravity lens upon phont differentials based on when they came from and how far...

Ultimately making adjustments to the output of an image \based on super deep-field focus which is effectively selecting to the phtons of interest... and we can basically "carbon date" the accuracy of an image with a higher resolution?

[supernovae]

We already calculated the gravity and mapped it out. Here is a paper on some of the research: https://www.kiss.caltech.edu/papers/darkmatter/papers/the_da...

What i think is pretty cool is that the gravity lens actually allowed hubble to see galaxies it may have not ever seen had there not been a gravity lens and now that we have JWST we see many more distant galaxies (and more of the same galaxy reflected in more positions)

[samstave]

Why have we not seen results of these scopes pointing at near bodies?

What does jupiter, PLUTO look like from these lenses???

THE FUCKING MOON

WE SPENT *BILLIONS* -- Why dont we have live streams?

GO FUCK YOUR NSA

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WHO PAID FOR IT.

The data should be global. define a SINGLE national defense trope. and back it up.

[rootusrootus]

Ah, that makes perfect sense. I guess I should have RTFM rather than just gawk at the pictures. Thanks for the ELI5!

[russh]

Oh, that makes sense. I was wondering about the odd shapes.

[april_22]

Will the JWST be able to make photos of black holes, similar to the ones the EHT made? And if yes, can the JWST be used to study black holes?

[nullc]

Producing an "image" of a black holes requires astronomical, ahem, resolution because they're so far away (thankfully). To achieve this kind of resolution you need an aperture of thousand of kilometers.

The EHT images are created using synthetic aperture techniques to create an effective aperture with a diameter of earth's orbit around the sun. But this is only currently possible at radio frequencies due to our ability to capture, store, and coherently combine the phase information. It's essentially SDR beam forming across space and time.

We can also study black holes though visible and IR observations through their effects of the things around them-- lensing from their mass, matter heated up by falling in. Here is an image I took of the relativistic speed matter jet believed to originate from black hole in M87: https://nt4tn.net/astro/#M87jet ... and Webb can do a lot better than I can with a camera lens in my back yard. :)

Aside, there is some controversy about the EHT black hole images. A recent paper claims to be able to reproduce the ring like images using the EHT's imaging process and a simulated point source-- raising the question of the entire image just being a processing artifact. https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2022/05/13/m87-ring-or-arte... Though it's not surprising to see concerns raised around cutting edge signal processing-- LIGO suffered from a bit of that, for example, but confidence there has been improved by a significant number of confirming observations (including optical confirmations of ligo events).

[pja]

> The EHT images are created using synthetic aperture techniques to create an effective aperture with a diameter of earth's orbit around the sun.

Small correction: The EHT is a synthetic aperture telescope the size of the Earth, not the size of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.

Synthetic aperture telescopes need both amplitude & phase information from each observing station & have to combine the phase of simultaneous observations in order to create the final image. We can’t do this on the scale of the earth’s orbit, because we don’t have a radio telescope on the far side of the sun!

Maybe one day ...

[chrisweekly]

> "Here is an image I took of the relativistic speed matter jet believed to originate from black hole in M87: https://nt4tn.net/astro/#M87jet ... and Webb can do a lot better than I can with a camera lens in my back yard. :)"

You, sir, have just contributed a prime example of HN comments at their best. Your astrophotography is outstanding. Thank you for sharing! :)

[april_22]

Thank you!

Another question: are they already planning a successor to JWST? Is something better even possible? If it took more than 30 years, we should start sooner than later :)

[btilly]

The next better thing won't likely take 30 years.

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/starship-is-st... is correct. No NASA planning, including for space telescopes, shows any understanding of how much Starship changes the game. Instead of one, we can put up a network of telescopes. And try out crazy ideas.

Here is a concrete example. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231032662_A_Cryogen... lays out how a 100 meter telescope could be erected on the Moon to study the early universe with several orders of magnitude better resolution than the JWST. The total weight of their design is around 8 tons. With traditional NASA technologies, transport of the material alone is over $30 billion and it had better work. With Starship, transportation is in the neighborhood of $10 million. Suppose that precision equipment added $40 million to the cost. Using Starship, for the cost of the JWST, we can put 200 missions of this complexity in space. Using a variety of different experimental ideas. And if only half of them worked, we'd still be 99 telescopes ahead of the JWST.

So where is Starship? It is on the pad, undergoing testing. They have a list of 75 environmental things to take care of before launch. Which means that they likely launch this month or next. At the planned construction cadence, even if the first 3 blow up, by Christmas it should be a proven technology.

[ceejayoz]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proposed_space_observa...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFIR is the closest to a proposed JWST successor; the others largely serve different purposes.