The JWST is grabbing headlines and eyeballs as its mission gains momentum. The telescope recently imaged M74 (NGC 628) with its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Judy Schmidt, a well-known amateur astronomy image processor, has worked on the image to bring out more detail.
M74 is a large spiral galaxy that contains somewhere around 100 billion stars. It is about 32 million light years away and is a great example of a spiral galaxy of great design. The JWST imaged the galaxy as part of the PHANG survey. PHANG (Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS) studies nearby galaxies at high resolution and aims “…to understand the interaction of the small-scale physics of gas and star formation with galactic structure and the evolution of the galaxies,” according to the PHANG website. .
The survey uses several telescopes to study galaxies, but now that JWST is up and running, it’s making a big contribution to the effort.
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This is the original JWST image of M 74 that circulated on social media before Judy Schmidt processed it. Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI
Judy Schmidt (Judy [email protected] on Twitter) is involved with the Planetary Society and is one of those rare people who looks at an amazing image of the JWST and thinks, “Hmmmm…not bad, but I can make it better.” (We’re kidding and don’t want to speak for her.) But it does speak to her strange skill set.
In the image description on Judy’s Flickr page, she writes: “Squeeze some color from the various filters showing all the bright dust in the center of NGC628.”
She lists the filters as:
- Red (display overlay mode): MIRI F2100W
- Orange: MIRI F1130W
- Cyan: MIRI F770W
- Additional overall grayscale brightness: MIRI F1000W
To understand the impact of the JWST, compare a Hubble image of M74 with the JWST image processed by Judy. The Hubble image is a composite of Advanced Camera data for the telescope surveys taken in 2003 and 2005.
At left is a composite Hubble image of M 74 taken with the Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. On the right is the JWST image processed by Judy Schmidt. Image credit: (l) NASA, ESA and Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration; Credit: R. Chandar (University of Toledo) and J. Miller (University of Michigan). (r) NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI/JUDY SCHMIDT CC BY 2.0
Visit Schmidt’s Flickr feed to see more of his work. He’s also on Twitter as @SpaceGeck, and his website is
This is Schmidt’s reworking of the JWST image of Jupiter that the telescope captured in its startup phase. Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI/JUDY SCHMIDT CC BY 2.0
“A highly processed (perhaps even over-processed) version of JWST’s Jupiter,” Schmidt writes in his description. “Here, we’re seeing the planet only in infrared, and the normally invisible ring is clear to everyone. The colors are certainly unusual.”
“There is some debate about what the red dot at the South Pole and the disconnected layer of atmosphere at the eastern end are. Real? Artifacts? We’ll wait for scientists to figure it out, but I’m leaning towards reality. : )”
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