Abstract

The Hubble and JWST space telescopes continue to give us the most detailed and spectacular images of the Universe. However, those admired by the general public are merely artistic renderings of scientific data analyzed by astronomers. Their production, the transition from raw data provided by the instruments to the final calibrated ones, requires a complex pipeline to remove any possible artifact. It is a dynamic process, as our understanding of instrumental effects grows with the constant influx of new data, urging us to employ ever more refined algorithms and processes to isolate the last photon, the one that the instrument may have captured after a journey lasting 13 billion years. In the Colloquium, I will illustrate how this process unfolds, with a particular focus on some aspects currently under study and the challenges posed by next-generation instruments.

Short Bio

• Team Leader for NIRCam at the Space Telescope Science Institute, overseeing the primary instrument of the James Webb Space Telescope.
• Researcher at Johns Hopkins University.
• AURA Observatory Scientist.

Massimo Robberto specializes in conceiving, developing, and operating cutting-edge astronomical instrumentation, with a particular focus on studying the formation of low-mass stars and planets in the Orion Nebula.

Previously, he served as the Instrument Scientist for the infrared channel of the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. He initiated SPACE, a dark energy mission launched in 2015 and now integrated into the Euclid mission.

Currently instrument PI of ATLAS Probe satellite and of the ground based programs SCORPIO and SAMOS spectrograph for the 4m SOAR telescope, Massimo Robberto has extensive experience with both space and ground-based telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope.

More info

https://www.stsci.edu/~robberto/

https://www.stsci.edu/stsci-research/research-directory/massimo-robberto

Reservations

Reservations are now open.