How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images • Hacker News Board

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#381

Post by verytrivial » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 12:00 PM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #284

verytrivial wrote: post #15

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 com…

I’m afraid you will die on that hill and be replaced by a happy rural resident who was being abused by a local telco monopoly, but is now using competitively priced, fast, low latency satellite internet. Using keps and scrubbing exposures in post is something we could already do decades ago. It’ll just be a new part of the workflow and eventually the space NIMBYs will quiet down.

> a happy rural resident who was being abused by a local telco monopoly

So you're straight up saying that because the regulation of US telco companies is ineffective and/or corrupt, the entire planet should pay for it? That's your argument? Please tell me that's not your argument.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#382

Post by spoopyskelly » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 12:04 PM UTC

verytrivial wrote: post #381

mmaunder wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m afraid you will die on that hill and be replaced by a happy rural resident who was being abused by a local telco monopoly, but is now using competitively priced, fast, low latency satellite internet. Using keps and scrubbing exposures in post is something we could already do decades ago. It’ll just be a new part of the workflow and eventually the space NIMBYs will quiet down.

> a happy rural resident who was being abused by a local telco monopoly So you're straight up saying that because the regulation of US telco companies is ineffective and/or corrupt, the entire planet should pay for it? That's your argument? Please tell me that's not your argument.

The entire planet won't pay for it, and observations will move above the Starlink constellation to space telescopes anyway.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#383

Post by verytrivial » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 12:34 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #184

51Cards wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I noted on a similar thread the issue is not removing the streaks, it's what data is lost behind those. If you take a look at this image you'll see that it can be a non-trivial amount of interference in some cases and that data can't just be filled in with "black". https://i.imgur.com/Qdt0N2g.png The interference also causes a "glow" effect on the CCD which corrupts the data well beyond the edges of the main strea…

I love all of the comments about using software to filter out the images. This response is so obvious that it is from someone who has never worked with data from imaging the sky, and probably have never thought about it more than a drive-by comment. "Just filter it out" they say. And replace it with what? An average of near by pixels? An AI background replacement? That's just bollocks. Every single dot in the sky is…

.. and I have given up chasing down the 'JuSt UsE SpaCE teLeScoPEs' comments. These people would write off the loss of New Zealand as the market simply finding the right benefit-cost ratio.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#384

Post by verytrivial » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

spoopyskelly wrote: post #382

verytrivial wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a happy rural resident who was being abused by a local telco monopoly So you're straight up saying that because the regulation of US telco companies is ineffective and/or corrupt, the entire planet should pay for it? That's your argument? Please tell me that's not your argument.

The entire planet won't pay for it, and observations will move above the Starlink constellation to space telescopes anyway.

I invite you to read astrophysician's comment on this idea -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24144959 and in fact browser his/her other comments on the topic. Summary: It is not that simple and assuming it is is not a good look!

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#385

Post by grawprog » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

Just star watching in general's become somewhat disappointing. I remember satellites were nearly as rare as meteors to see and almost as exciting when you spotted one. Now though, it's hard to even look at the stars without something moving in sky. Every couple minutes there's satellites.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#386

Post by valuearb » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 4:24 PM UTC

athriren wrote: post #366

valuearb wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX has just implemented sun Visors on the latest batch of satellites, so why aren’t you aware of that? In space infrared detectors are the most effective way of searching for dangerous NEOs, and SpaceX has made them far cheaper to launch. How come you don’t know that? https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/nasem_r...

how come you are so condescending?

> astronomers are pretty darn aware of everything going on

Then they claim SpaceX is only trying paint.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#387

Post by valuearb » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #353

valuearb wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX has just implemented sun Visors on the latest batch of satellites, so why aren’t you aware of that? In space infrared detectors are the most effective way of searching for dangerous NEOs, and SpaceX has made them far cheaper to launch. How come you don’t know that? https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/nasem_r...

How about looking at what the username of the person you replied to spells out. Then click on it, look through their comment history and do some homework.

That doesn’t give them cart Blanche to post incorrect assertions. That would be called a “appeal to authority” argument.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#388

Post by valuearb » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 4:28 PM UTC

huonpine wrote: post #356

valuearb wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of the night sky will be obscured if Starlink goes to 30,000 satellites? Let me guess, if the visual radius of a one meter satellite 550,000 meters away is (1/X)^2. Thirty thousand would be 1/one trillion, or far less?

Its not just about Starlink though, its about setting a precedent before every company and country starts launching competing constellations. When should we start to care after the first few thousand or after hundred of thousands of eventual satellite's?

It would take trillions to appreciably dim the night sky. Wake me then.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#389

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #380

TeMPOraL wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do not believe that. The hardware and software is expensive because regular stuff will fail in space and you can't call some guy to just go and replace parts. I know it was done but it was expensive and risky. Radhard stuff is expensive, but not that expensive. Also space missions don't need all that much compute - they carry only as much as is needed to operate the hardware and maintain a radio link with Earth.…

You can't launch a 40m diameter telescope and so you would need to launch more smaller ones, then you would need to physically connect them so they are perfectly sync(can't be done in software or with imperfect distance/teime measurements). You also need all the optical and mechanical stuff to survive the launch, the difference of tempreture and pressure from getting moved from the ground to space etc. What I am sayi…

> What I am saying if Elon or Jeff makes a telescope work harder or impossible they should pay for fixing the issue not the public and it should be fixed today not in 50 years.

SpaceX is doing what it can to "fix it". There's not much more that can be done beyond just not launching satellites. At this point, you have to choose whether you want clean skies or humanity spacefaring; you can't have both. I'm strongly in the "humanity spacefaring" camp, especially that once some sort of permanent industrial presence is established in the cislunar space, we will be able to build large telescopes in orbit or on the Moon.

> IMO you did not convince me that the reason we don't have tons of space telescopes is the launch price.

I'm trying my best :). Consider also economies of scale: expensive launches means your payload is pretty much unique, which makes it expensive. Cheap launches means you can make more, which drives architecture & hardware standardization, which lets manufacturing scale up, reducing its costs significantly.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#390

Post by simion314 » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #389

simion314 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't launch a 40m diameter telescope and so you would need to launch more smaller ones, then you would need to physically connect them so they are perfectly sync(can't be done in software or with imperfect distance/teime measurements). You also need all the optical and mechanical stuff to survive the launch, the difference of tempreture and pressure from getting moved from the ground to space etc. What I am sayi…

> What I am saying if Elon or Jeff makes a telescope work harder or impossible they should pay for fixing the issue not the public and it should be fixed today not in 50 years. SpaceX is doing what it can to "fix it". There's not much more that can be done beyond just not launching satellites. At this point, you have to choose whether you want clean skies or humanity spacefaring; you can't have both. I'm strongly in…

Still, so maybe we should be mathematical about this: how much it costs to fix this and tax every new satellite proportional with it's pollution. SpaceX tried to "fix" things only when bad PR hit them, before that some leaders there decided that this is not an issue.

The tax would also insensitivese to launch better/smaller satellites and not abuse the fact that launch is cheap so let's put as many stuff in orbit because we can (maybe US can get their shit together and use cables for internet like rest of the world) so Internet satellites would be used only by remote communities. IMO if you managed to somehow have electricity and old fashion telephone cables then what the hell is expensive to drag a new cable for internet to this places ?