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SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

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Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#221

Post by greglindahl »

iudqnolq wrote: post #218
greglindahl wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100 years ago, lots of them were.

Kind of. Some on mountains near cities, but even then light polution was an issue they had to mitigate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_optical_telesc... In general, I'm fine with scientists needing to accommodate people more than they had to 100 years ago.

That list of telescopes only goes back to 1932, and I studied astronomy at one of the institutions in question.

As an example, why is this area named Observatory Hill? https://www.google.com/maps/place/Observatory+Hill,+Cambridg...

> In general, I'm fine with scie!tists needing to accommodate people more than they had to 100 years ago.

Indeed, that's the majority opinion.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#222

Post by sneak »

nordsieck wrote: post #112
SamReidHughes wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a bit wrong in my initial estimate. More satellites can't improve latency by much once they get dense enough, and it looks like Starlink has enough such that the altitude would be on the same scale as distance. Still doesn't matter for the typical home user. Like, I get 21 ms ping to servers in my local city.

> Still doesn't matter for the typical home user. One very important market they're going after is global arbitrageurs.

The funny part is that by providing low latency service to them, they are (hopefully) going to be able to fund SpaceX longer to build rockets to get human colonies off-planet.

It’s almost like a Gibson or Stephenson novel.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#224

Post by iudqnolq »

greglindahl wrote: post #221
iudqnolq wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of. Some on mountains near cities, but even then light polution was an issue they had to mitigate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_optical_telesc... In general, I'm fine with scientists needing to accommodate people more than they had to 100 years ago.

That list of telescopes only goes back to 1932, and I studied astronomy at one of the institutions in question. As an example, why is this area named Observatory Hill? https://www.google.com/maps/place/Observatory+Hill,+Cambridg... > In general, I'm fine with scie!tists needing to accommodate people more than they had to 100 years ago. Indeed, that's the majority opinion.

You're right, not quite 100 years.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#225

Post by reitzensteinm »

greglindahl wrote: post #219
reitzensteinm wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the "did Musk found Tesla thing" petty and unnecessary. Without Musk it would have been a footnote in history. But I dislike your assertion that just because SV companies feel free to rewrite their history, we should consider that canonical. It's totally valid to point out that Musk wasn't a founder, though using it as some kind of slight is juvenile. eBay is free to claim it was invented to sell Pez dispenser…

I didn't assert that, nor did I say it was invalid to not understand the inside-Silicon-Valley use of "founder". I was just explaining how to not embarrass yourself.

With all respect, I can't read your previous posts without taking the meaning I did, but the fault may be mine.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#226

Post by eddieh »

allovernow wrote: post #84
9192631770_Hz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I’m an astronomer and I can tell you this SpaceX statement is pure BS. The astronomy community absolutely thought of this before any of these satellites were launched. I’ve personally talked about it at public outreach events (and it was members of the public who brought it up) and topic has definitely come up at professional meetings...but there is just a general feeling of powerlessness, both from the point of…

>charlatan like Musk I'm not a fanboy by any means but the guy built two companies and launched a car from his factory into space from a rocket his other business built. He's personally spearheading the early stages of commercial space exploration. I don't know that I'd describe him as a charlatan.

Starting companies, even successful, relatively technical companies, does not preclude a person from being a charlatan. The charlatan part comes when he publicly dismissed the concerns of experts and claimed there wouldn't be a problem, but of course there was a problem.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#227

Post by shaklee3 »

portillo wrote: post #210
ceejayoz wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OneWeb claims to have cracked that, for a price point of $200-300. https://spacenews.com/wyler-claims-breakthrough-in-low-cost-... Even if it winds up being more expensive, you might see a neighborhood getting an antenna and distributing it to a group of houses. > SpaceX will not realize 20Gbps per satellite in useable bandwidth. It's more like 5Gbps. Based on guesses made prior to the first launch of production hard…

I am the author of the slides/paper. The analysis was done with the best data available at the time, but I am interested in knowing what parameters you think are off / have changed substantially since then. I can say that the mass and volume of the satellites has changed quite a lot, and therefore the number of rocket launches required is pretty off in the paper. But I have not seen much info to invalidate the rest o…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the mass estimates increased? either way, that should only affect how many that can launch at a given time. I didn't think that number had changed appreciably either.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#228

Post by ricardobeat »

eddieh wrote: post #226
allovernow wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>charlatan like Musk I'm not a fanboy by any means but the guy built two companies and launched a car from his factory into space from a rocket his other business built. He's personally spearheading the early stages of commercial space exploration. I don't know that I'd describe him as a charlatan.

Starting companies, even successful, relatively technical companies, does not preclude a person from being a charlatan. The charlatan part comes when he publicly dismissed the concerns of experts and claimed there wouldn't be a problem, but of course there was a problem.

> charlatan: a person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#229

Post by ricardobeat »

justin66 wrote: post #214
antognini wrote: post #152

As an astronomer once upon a time I follow a number of my former colleagues on Twitter and pretty regularly see them posting images that have been ruined by Starlink. Here is one from just 12 hours ago: https://twitter.com/MassiveStarGuy/status/120358895831320576... This is going to have a bigger impact on the more expensive observations that require long-duration exposures.

This definitely wasn't ruined (it's amateur video) but if anyone wants to see Starlink photobombing an astronomer, this amateur video of a recent meteor shower is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHI8Z5qpd6I (an astronomer friend thought I'd be able to identify the satellite amongst all the meteors, which was sweet... I think it's a bit after the 2 minute mark)

Is it the one making a line starting from the bottom left corner, or the thing that makes a very short bright streak at 2:08?

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#230

Post by eddieh »

ricardobeat wrote: post #228
eddieh wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting companies, even successful, relatively technical companies, does not preclude a person from being a charlatan. The charlatan part comes when he publicly dismissed the concerns of experts and claimed there wouldn't be a problem, but of course there was a problem.

> charlatan: a person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill

"publicly dismissed the concerns of experts" i.e falsely claiming to have special knowledge
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