Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: thedoc on 06/09/2011 16:52:06

Title: What image resolution will the James Webb telescope capture?
Post by: thedoc on 06/09/2011 16:52:06

What is the resolution of the images that telescopes like the James Webb can capture?
Asked by Nish Nayar


                                        Visit the webpage for the podcast in which this question is answered. (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/show/2011.09.04/)

 

Title: What image resolution will the James Webb telescope capture?
Post by: thedoc on 06/09/2011 16:52:06

We answered this question on the show...



Well the telescope is in fact bigger than the Hubble Space Telescope.  It’s 6.5 metres, but it’s designed to image in the infrared. Its images in the infrared will be as precise and as fine as the Hubble images are at the optical. 
So it will take as spectacular images as the Hubble does, but at infrared wavelengths.  And so, for the first time, we’ll see the universe in the infrared with the clarity and spectacular image quality of the Hubble Space Telescope. 
The size of the cameras is actually very large.  We’ve used the latest infrared ray technology and one of our prime cameras, called the near infrared camera – not very imaginative I'm afraid – will actually take instantaneous pictures which are roughly 33 megapixels in size.  So we'll get very large images.

Title: What image resolution will the James Webb telescope capture?
Post by: imatfaal on 06/09/2011 17:03:10

33 megapixels is not massively large.  Admittedly I don't transfer my pictures from the second lagrange point - but you can buy cameras down the shops that are very similar size.  I have not read up on the latest news - but the feeling I get is that it's a dead duck now, which would be a tragedy