Webb's First Deep Field

The deep-field photograph, which covers a tiny area of sky visible from the Southern Hemisphere, is centered on SMACS 0723, a galaxy cluster in the constellation of Volans.

[2] Webb's First Deep Field was taken by the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and is a composite produced from images at different wavelengths, totalling 12.5 hours of exposure time.

[2] The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago,[4] covering an area of sky with an angular size approximately equal to a grain of sand held at arm's length.

[3] Many of the objects in the image have undergone notable redshift due to the expansion of space over the extreme distance traveled by the light radiating from them.

Webb's NIRCam brought the distant galaxies into sharp focus, revealing tiny, faint structures that had never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features.

The background of space is black. Thousands of galaxies appear all across the view. Their shapes and colors vary. Some are various shades of orange, others are white. Most stars appear blue, and are sometimes as large as more distant galaxies that appear next to them. A very bright star is just above and left of center. It has eight long, bright-blue diffraction spikes. Between 4 o'clock and 6 o'clock in its spikes are several very bright galaxies. A group of three are in the middle, and two are closer to 4 o'clock. These galaxies are part of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, and they are warping the appearances of galaxies seen around them. Long orange arcs appear at left and right toward the center.
Webb's First Deep Field
The Webb telescope's mirror is composed of 18 individual mirrors, each having a hexagonal rim, rather than the round rim typically used in telescopes.
The six diffraction spikes from the rim along with the two horizontal diffraction spikes from the struts, for a total of eight diffraction spikes. The colors of the spikes correspond to the colors of the rim edges and color of struts.