[cheesemayo]

In the sibling photo in the index is a comparison of Hubble vs Webb.

Hubble is very brown-y, and Webb is much more blue.

But these are false colors, and they capture different light. It has to be an artistic decision to make it blue, vs brown, so does anyone here know the rationale? Is it to distinguish the different provenance? Is the color shift indicative of the captured spectrum difference? Is it a convention of the sensor? Is it a 2020s fad?

[ugh123]

Webb uses mid-infrared to capture the image. I'm not sure if they then assign colors arbitrarily.

Hubble uses visible light and I prefer this image from an artistic standpoint as it seems to capture depth better.

[hrnnnnnn]

It's not arbitrary. They assign colours in order based on wavelength, so the shortest wavelengths will be bluer and the longest wavelengths will be redder.

[ugh123]

Makes sense. Thank you

[cheesemayo]

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2024/137/01J...

[penteract]

The relevant part being near the bottom:

> These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the James Webb Space Telescope using the MIRI instrument. Several filters were used to sample wide wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F770W, Green: F1130W, Red: F1280W.

Chasing some numbers up, it looks like they've made the wavelengths around 20 times shorter to bring the picture into the visible spectrum.

[01100011]

I'd like to see some everyday objects as well as planets in our solar system in these same frequency ranges and color assignments for comparison.

[jorblumesea]

mid near infrared vs visible light. one of the big bets with webb is that visible isn't the ideal spectrum to target. it's fantastic from a research standpoint but the pictures may seem less pleasing vs hubbles.