I think people's priors here are out of whack -- perhaps the truth does lie somewhere in the middle, but if so, it will be much closer to ETH's version than the OP's.
"...We have seen, and taken a picture, of a Black Hole."
Now the you have published the data from 2017, If I publish my own "photo", and I chose blue with spots of white, using the same library you used and the same color maps:
https://github.com/liamedeiros/ehtplot/blob/docs/docs/COLORM...
Why yours will be more a picture than mine in blue? Maybe I will even splint a little bit of red in there...
I also would like to notice you did not explain why my blue "picture" would be less a "picture" than yours.
Taking a real picture of a black hole like with a cellphone camera would likely be just like a bright white star.
Btw we released the 2017 calibrated data today, too.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022arXiv220510267P/abstra...
Aren't they are peer reviewed?
What is your expertise in astrophysics?