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How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

nature.com

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Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#11

Post by rimliu »

cheph wrote: post #6
kome wrote: post #5

"SpaceX, an aerospace company in Hawthorne, California, has already launched more than 650 of a planned 12,000 Starlink satellites. Other operators include the London-based OneWeb, which has launched 74 of what it hopes will be a gigantic fleet of 48,000 satellites, and Amazon, which last month received US government approval to launch 3,236 satellites for its planned Kuiper service." We need to do something about mi…

> We need to do something about millionaires. Urgently. Can you elaborate what premise this conclusion follows from? And what do you want to do about them? And going out on a limb, I would assume you have a problem with the satellites, but Amazon, SpaceX and OneWeb are companies, not a Millionaires. So maybe you meant to say we should do something about companies?

So you say this idea was born by the company and not some human ambition? How did Amazon the company, or SpaceX the company come up with this? Nothing to do with Bezos and Musk for sure?

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#14

Post by Cthulhu_ »

kome wrote: post #5

"SpaceX, an aerospace company in Hawthorne, California, has already launched more than 650 of a planned 12,000 Starlink satellites. Other operators include the London-based OneWeb, which has launched 74 of what it hopes will be a gigantic fleet of 48,000 satellites, and Amazon, which last month received US government approval to launch 3,236 satellites for its planned Kuiper service." We need to do something about mi…

Millionaires are individuals; spacex and oneweb are companies.

Rich people aren't the problem themselves, a lack of regulation and taxation is. In this case, the FTC (iirc) can just approve spacex launching tens of thousands of satellites. This is weird because space is either international - so should be regulated internationally - or sovereign, the bits passing over other countries.

But the world is busy with other shit than space legislation right now so eh.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#15

Post by verytrivial »

The article covers the mitigations already in place and how they only partially resolve the issue. These satellites are low, bright (at dawn/dusk) and very soon to be incredibly numerous.

Yes, it is possible for data workflows to post-process these streaks away, but not all configurations allow this, and whereas previous intrusions were somewhat rare and could be ignored that simply won't be the case due to three companies from one country.

This is cost turned into an "externality" and foisted upon astronomers--at every scale of investment--all over the world. Stock holders in these companies won't pay for it, but tax payers everywhere will pay for the mitigations. Not cool. This is a hill I'll die on.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#16

Post by scoot »

I can periodically see with the naked eye what appear to be "moving stars" (about the same approximate brightness as an average star), and appearing to orbit the earth (moving in a "straight" line across the sky).

Can I assume that these are satellites?

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#18

Post by jsiepkes »

genidoi wrote: post #12

In unrelated news the cost of launching a space telescope (that doesn't suffer from atmospheric perturbations or cloud cover) has decreased by several orders of magnitude.

The satellite itself is way more expensive then a ground based telescope. Maintenance of a space telescope is much more expensive then a ground based telescope. All in all launching a satellite is just a fraction of the total costs of a space telescope.

On top of that SpaceX has also not proven to be real friendly towards space telescopes, so that just "moves" the problem. See for example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2019/09/02/s...

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#19

Post by gppk »

scoot wrote: post #16

I can periodically see with the naked eye what appear to be "moving stars" (about the same approximate brightness as an average star), and appearing to orbit the earth (moving in a "straight" line across the sky). Can I assume that these are satellites?

They look something like this - https://explainingscience.org/2020/01/29/spacex-starlink-sat...

If you google starlink satellites you can see more images

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#20

Post by sneak »

scoot wrote: post #16

I can periodically see with the naked eye what appear to be "moving stars" (about the same approximate brightness as an average star), and appearing to orbit the earth (moving in a "straight" line across the sky). Can I assume that these are satellites?

Yes, especially if they are just after dusk or before dawn. Spotting satellites is a common thing.
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