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LesbianLipReader t1_ixzv322 wrote

I'm not very well informed on the behind the scenes stuff going on around JWST images, but you seem to be based on your comments.

Is there a publicly available place on the internet where I could find the raw data/images produced by the JWST, that you know of? I imagine it will be mostly incomprehensible to me, but I'm curious to learn more about what the Telescope is capturing before it's been curated or edited or otherwise interpreted for the public.

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Riegel_Haribo t1_ixzztab wrote

I created a post to give you a behind the scenes look at what the uncalibrated and "raw" imagery can look like, and even that is processed to make it presentable on the screen.

The science instruments of the telescope, when they are used for imaging or otherwise, capture a very large dynamic range of light, from a single photon strike to the brightness of Jupiter, in a single wavelength passband at a time (aka black-and-white). Multiple data products can be contained in a FITS data file, sometimes hundreds of groups of integrations in some low levels of "raw". Some manual intervention is needed to at least set the brightness contour and background to highlight the observation target.

All public Western space telescope data is published on the STScI MAST portal (or the ESA equivalent), where one must make queries of the database, know what science program you are interested in, know the instruments and modes, data pipeline products, etc. A random hot-off-the-presses image might leave you merely whelmed, if you don't know the science behind it.

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LesbianLipReader t1_iy015lq wrote

Thanks so much for the thorough reply! I appreciate it a lot. I'm saving this comment so I can come back to it. I'm very grateful.

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