Despite being teetotal… I’ve raised a glass skyward… remembering my younger brother and many of his colleagues and friends… who are all up there, somewhere…
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This is what mankind should be doing, not lying in Westminster nor, much more tragically, slaughtering one another in Donbas. imagine what we could achive with the right focus 
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Good use of $10 billion or not?
They are amazing pictures so beautiful and looking so far back in time, my hamlet is named after a constellation but we pronounce it in a different way Hopital d Orion on the route to the field of Stars Santiago de Compostela
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I take it you think its a waste of money I knew a man long gone who developed wireless pictures in the 1930’s and he admitted he had no idea to what purpose it would be useful We all know it now as television I hope humans will always ask the question why and developed means to answer the question For me its money well spent
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To be honest the cost of developing the telescope didn’t register until the pictures were discussed on a talk show yesterday, I’m not fussed either way and just I’d just ask what people thought.
Here today, gone tomorrow 
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The visual extremes of astronomy and microscopy have much in common as they are both examples of what the art historian James Elkins termed ‘the end of representation.’ For a glimpse of what he meant, see:
Start reading Six Stories from the End of Representation | James Elkins (sup.org)
What often eludes the general public is that these images have been extensively enhanced in digital post-production, using algorithmic sharpening features to increase the level of detail, a whole galaxy might just be a few pixels across! Astronomers then try to extrapolate the macro picture from such micro detail.
Colourising is also used extensively to distinguish overlapping visual elements, and of course the Webb telescope makes visible the infra-red spectrum and merges that with our human visible spectrum. Because of all these factors the Webb ‘photographs’ are not really photographs, but highly manipulated digital images, that simulate the appearance of photographs. In other words, what you see can differ considerably from what the camera actually ‘captured’.
It has been suggested that not all the above procedures are done for wholly scientific purposes, but that for several decades there has also been considerable ‘aestheticising’ in order for NASA PR to promote and ‘sell’ its mission to the public.
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Compared to our governments spend of £37 billion on test and trace with probably quite a lot of retouching and colourising of the data. Yes I think so.
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These have become my latest background images for my computers.
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You gotta sell that dream somehow, and whilst naked bodies in an astounding variety of positions might sell well on the common mortal plane, you can really let your mind wander with NASA imagery 
Oh dear Dr Mark bah humbug 
I don’t care what they did, they are amazing and made me smile and feel excited and I’m not really a star person! Thank you for your explication though!
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When next weeks shots show Battle Star Galactica fly past we’ll be wishing we spent more sooner
That’s just over 2 Large Hadron Colliders
Yes, it’s true that there is a large amount of post production goes on for these images, but its for these images. Also, Infra red images have to be shifted in spectrum to, well, make them visible, so that people can appreciate them. As for what is used for the real scientific work, it’s almost exclusively the real raw data. Some enhancements can be made, but not much.
But who needs 2 hadrons?
A deuterium nucleus ?
Is that better than a tritium nucleus?
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
― Arthur C. Clarke
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