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Trails Made by Starlink Satellites

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Re: Trails Made by Starlink Satellites

#11

Post by jacquesm »

meddlepal wrote: post #9
madengr wrote: post #7

Damn it, can’t the entire country be wired with fiber? It was done 100 years ago with heavy conductors for electrification, then again with twisted copper pair for phone, but now in the 21st century no one can do shit. Save wireless for what it’s actually useful for, mobile and extremely remote use.

The answer is No because your local friendly NIMBY will kill such a project for some asinine reason.

I tried laying fiber to an island in Canada. The locals were ecstatic about it, the telco did what they could to block it, then, when it was clear we were going to succeed they finally put in minimal broadband for the one village within the area we were going to cover killing all economies of scale that we might have found.

NIMBY had nothing to do with it.

Re: Trails Made by Starlink Satellites

#12

Post by jstr »

madengr wrote: post #7

Damn it, can’t the entire country be wired with fiber? It was done 100 years ago with heavy conductors for electrification, then again with twisted copper pair for phone, but now in the 21st century no one can do shit. Save wireless for what it’s actually useful for, mobile and extremely remote use.

Here in New Zealand the Government just did this.

Re: Trails Made by Starlink Satellites

#13

Post by btilly »

madengr wrote: post #7

Damn it, can’t the entire country be wired with fiber? It was done 100 years ago with heavy conductors for electrification, then again with twisted copper pair for phone, but now in the 21st century no one can do shit. Save wireless for what it’s actually useful for, mobile and extremely remote use.

1. This is the entire world, not the entire country.

2. In order to have wireless available for extremely remote use, it has to be everywhere.

3. The bandwidth that is planned will not be enough for more than a small percentage of traffic in dense urban areas.

Re: Trails Made by Starlink Satellites

#15

Post by SiempreViernes »

astro123 wrote: post #4

Here's a statement [1] by one of the largest upcoming surveys, LSST. At least for them, this isn't going to be too much of a problem as, 1) Exposures are fairly short and frequent and so pixels contaminated by these satellites can be easily rejected. 2) There is a huge amount of resources (relative to other projects) going into the image pipeline for this project. I don't actually know in details how much this will a…

It's great that the LSST can survive this, but there's not much point to building it if all the spectroscopy follow up is killed by efforts to put facebook in front of every face in the world.

Spectroscopy is the fundament on which modern astronomy is built, and it inherently takes long times even with big mirrors. Getting a satellite in the field of view as you take your spectrum most likely means having to start over, and you run out of usable darkness faster.

Re: Trails Made by Starlink Satellites

#16

Post by Nextgrid »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
meddlepal wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is No because your local friendly NIMBY will kill such a project for some asinine reason.

I tried laying fiber to an island in Canada. The locals were ecstatic about it, the telco did what they could to block it, then, when it was clear we were going to succeed they finally put in minimal broadband for the one village within the area we were going to cover killing all economies of scale that we might have found. NIMBY had nothing to do with it.

You could’ve signed up the people in advance into a yearly contract before even starting the build (with fair clauses that they can opt out at no charge if the service turns out different than expected, etc).

Re: Trails Made by Starlink Satellites

#17

Post by SiempreViernes »

garmaine wrote: post #6
kortilla wrote: post #3

“Although this image serves as an illustration of the impact of reflections from satellite constellations, please note that the density of these satellites is significantly higher in the days after launch (as seen here) and also that the satellites will diminish in brightness as they reach their final orbital altitude.”

Also, not mentioned, satellite trails are only an issue just around twilight and only near the horizons, both of which are bad seeing conditions for telescopes.

"Just" being several hours, cutting shorter the finite amount of dark time available.

Re: Trails Made by Starlink Satellites

#18

Post by zamadatix »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #15
astro123 wrote: post #4

Here's a statement [1] by one of the largest upcoming surveys, LSST. At least for them, this isn't going to be too much of a problem as, 1) Exposures are fairly short and frequent and so pixels contaminated by these satellites can be easily rejected. 2) There is a huge amount of resources (relative to other projects) going into the image pipeline for this project. I don't actually know in details how much this will a…

It's great that the LSST can survive this, but there's not much point to building it if all the spectroscopy follow up is killed by efforts to put facebook in front of every face in the world. Spectroscopy is the fundament on which modern astronomy is built, and it inherently takes long times even with big mirrors. Getting a satellite in the field of view as you take your spectrum most likely means having to start ov…

If it can be cheap enough to send 10s of thousands of internet satellites into orbit every 5 years perhaps the same innovation will help drive cheaper space based observance where light pollution, radio pollution, satellite/airplane streaks, and usable darkness aren't a problem.

Re: Trails Made by Starlink Satellites

#19

Post by planteen »

zamadatix wrote: post #18
SiempreViernes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's great that the LSST can survive this, but there's not much point to building it if all the spectroscopy follow up is killed by efforts to put facebook in front of every face in the world. Spectroscopy is the fundament on which modern astronomy is built, and it inherently takes long times even with big mirrors. Getting a satellite in the field of view as you take your spectrum most likely means having to start ov…

If it can be cheap enough to send 10s of thousands of internet satellites into orbit every 5 years perhaps the same innovation will help drive cheaper space based observance where light pollution, radio pollution, satellite/airplane streaks, and usable darkness aren't a problem.

The problem is size. The proposed constellations are possible because of small satellites. It's much easier to build a large telescope on the ground than it is in space. I don't see the small satellite revolution changing this.

Re: Trails Made by Starlink Satellites

#20

Post by klagermkii »

Nextgrid wrote: post #16
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried laying fiber to an island in Canada. The locals were ecstatic about it, the telco did what they could to block it, then, when it was clear we were going to succeed they finally put in minimal broadband for the one village within the area we were going to cover killing all economies of scale that we might have found. NIMBY had nothing to do with it.

You could’ve signed up the people in advance into a yearly contract before even starting the build (with fair clauses that they can opt out at no charge if the service turns out different than expected, etc).

It doesn't make sense for the average individual homeowner to sign something like this. It's also very difficult to do a fair clause for service quality that works at scale for a contended residential service.

Also a one-year contract still doesn't protect you from them setting predatory pricing for expiring contracts the next year. A large telco can play many games of attrition that are very hard for a small (non-VC) startup to win.

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