What an AMAZING Difference in High Def Detail

The difference in detail is simply amazing. It’s like getting a new pair of glasses. Even though the James Webb Space Telescope isn’t officially on the job yet, fans are screaming for images. NASA obliged by re-releasing an image from the recent equipment calibration runs, side-by-side with the best image of the same target they had on file.

Mind blowing detail

The human race will finally get to experience the universe in HD, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. To put the detail these instruments are capable of obtaining into perspective, NASA dug up a shot grabbed by the now retired Spitzer Space Telescope.

That one was launched back in 2003. To make it a true apples-to-apples comparison, it was “the first to provide high-resolution images of the near- and mid-infrared universe.”

Webb was still trying to get the various sensors all coordinated to work together in harmony when it imaged a crisp, clear shot of the Large Magellanic Cloud.

The detail stands out like a neon sign when you see the unfocused “blur of around seven nearby stars” which was the best Spitzer could accomplish. Astronomers thought the old shot was impressive. Now, they’re astounded.

The Large Magellanic Cloud is a “satellite galaxy that orbits the Milky Way.” What Webb zoomed in on is the foreground stars. The experts at NASA are doing handstands over the “sharp detail.”

It also reveals “more subtle details such as wispy clouds of interstellar gas and hundreds of background stars and galaxies.”

Unprecedented quality high def images

That level of detail, they glowingly brag, is “unprecedented.” They were also glad to report that “all four of its science instruments are in perfect alignment.”

Specifically, the Near InfraRed Camera, NIRCam, covers “the edge of the visible through the near infrared.” The Near InfraRed Spectrograph, NIRSpec, “will also perform spectroscopy over the same wavelength range.”

Moving on to Mid-InfraRed detail, MIRI “will measure the mid-to-long-infrared wavelength range from 5 to 27 micrometers.”

At the same time, the Fine Guidance Sensor and Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph called FGS/NIRISS, “is used to stabilize the line-of-sight of the observatory during science observations.” It works. Better than expected, even!

According to Michael McElwain, James Webb Space Telescope project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, he’s “delighted to report that the telescope alignment has been completed with performance even better than we had anticipated.”

You won’t get much more detail from anything, anywhere. “We basically reached a perfect telescope alignment. There’s no adjustment to the telescope optics that would make material improvements to our science performance.“