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“Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

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Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#231

Post by SapporoChris »

defrost wrote: post #217
SapporoChris wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I think the entire issue can be resolved with more telescopes in orbit. I can understand European Southern Observatory (ESO) being concerned about becoming obsolete, but is the astronomy community as a whole concerned about the issue? I understand there's currently around 722 observatories (some defunct, some are in orbit) based on this source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astronomical_observato... B…

> sounds like this only affects visible light telescopes. Nope - it's also an issue with radio telescopes, and radio arrays such as SKA The Starlink constellation is leaking radio interference in bands it pinky promised it wouldn't and the issue got worse with successive generations despite assurances it would be addressed. Such leakage isn't, of course, limited to dawn / dusk - it's ever present and ongoing.

Thank you for the correction. "An analysis of 76 million images from a prototype station for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope found Starlink satellite emissions affected up to 30% of images in some datasets" https://www.space.com/astronomy/scientists-analyze-76-millio...

30% sounds massive, but I wish they had given more detail to how much the images had been compromised.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#232

Post by throwthrowuknow »

dgellow wrote: post #115
Legend2440 wrote: post #8

This is a tradeoff we have to make with infrastructure and development in general. How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? Do we put up long-distance power lines and wind farms even though they ruin the views? Do you tear down a forest to put up farmlands and suburbs? Do you build a dam to provide water for irrigation, even though it kills the fish and floods a valley? Satellites are actually easier than…

> How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? How about we set a limit on how many satellites? That’s exactly how to balance

Let’s set a limit on the number of houses that can be built while we’re at it.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#233

Post by alchemism »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #222
alchemism wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: a successful invasion of the North American continent has very little to do with weaponry and more to do with logistics and projection of force across an ocean. There is only one superpower with the capabilities to do it at all.

Yes. Right now...because the U.S. had the biggest baddest military that the world had ever known. If we had not had that, someone else would have made one. It's one thing to forgo an option that does not seem viable versus expecting the same decision when it is.

You mean like the British Empire? ....The Spanish Empire maybe?

The only modern contender, the Japanese Empire, arose partly by the encouragement of Teddy Roosevelt.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#234

Post by defrost »

SapporoChris wrote: post #231
defrost wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sounds like this only affects visible light telescopes. Nope - it's also an issue with radio telescopes, and radio arrays such as SKA The Starlink constellation is leaking radio interference in bands it pinky promised it wouldn't and the issue got worse with successive generations despite assurances it would be addressed. Such leakage isn't, of course, limited to dawn / dusk - it's ever present and ongoing.

Thank you for the correction. "An analysis of 76 million images from a prototype station for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope found Starlink satellite emissions affected up to 30% of images in some datasets" https://www.space.com/astronomy/scientists-analyze-76-millio... 30% sounds massive, but I wish they had given more detail to how much the images had been compromised.

"Technically" all Starlink have to do is turn off / dial back their sats when they transit over (say) the Murchison Radio Quiet Zone.

I understand that can be tricky; cycling things on and off multiple times during orbital lifetime is more hardware stress inducing than leaving things static - but there isn't a lot of evidence of much effort being made on that problem aside from some insincere(?) lip service.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#235

Post by snovv_crash »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #36
snovv_crash wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a fair allocation of sattelites would be proportional to the number of citizens with voting rights in the country. Maybe with some modifier about how impactful that voting can actually be (eg. citizen initiatives vs. just electing representatives from a preselected pool).

As a California resident I really don't like the idea of a legal framework that encourages more citizen initiatives. They would be used to try to prevent building more housing.

Citizen initiatives are the only thing that can cut across partisan lines and stop politics from turning into tribal warfare.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#236

Post by kmaitreys »

SapporoChris wrote: post #216
0-_-0 wrote: post #10

If we can launch 1M satellites, how many telescopes can we launch?

Agreed, I think the entire issue can be resolved with more telescopes in orbit. I can understand European Southern Observatory (ESO) being concerned about becoming obsolete, but is the astronomy community as a whole concerned about the issue? I understand there's currently around 722 observatories (some defunct, some are in orbit) based on this source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astronomical_observato... B…

What about ground based telescopes and interferometers which enable observations with much much larger baseline?

Space-based and ground-based telescopes are complementary to each other. You can't replace one out for the other.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#238

Post by kmaitreys »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #219
protortyp wrote: post #37

Of course this comes from a European organisation.

Europe has given up on advancing anything and their only solutions to problems is regulations.

What advancement is being made exactly? SpaceX data centres to create more AI slop?

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#239

Post by ben_w »

m4rtink wrote: post #192
dgellow wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? How about we set a limit on how many satellites? That’s exactly how to balance

Setting a limit on a number of satellites seems rather arbitrary and not very effective to actually achieve a specific result.

I would argue that setting a limit is the enforcement mechanism, not the balancing mechanism.

A scientific justification is the balancing mechanism that produces the number which is then enforced.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#240

Post by kmaitreys »

scoofy wrote: post #202

Dumb question, can we put cameras on the backs of all these satellites, so they can record outside the atmosphere all the time?

The issue at hand is with the ground based telescopes. We need both ground-based and space-based telescopes because with ground based telescopes you can create arrays and interferometers enabling a much larger baseline (in layman terms this means much higher angular resolution)
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