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How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

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Re: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

#11

Post by ericd »

tetris11 wrote: post #2

I know it's a blessing for people who live out in the sticks to have internet.... but is that really such a large use-case to justify entire fleets of these things? How hard is it to run km of wire from the nearest town? To me, these were built for the sole purpose of surveillance, and internet is an afterthought. Edit: yes yes it's expensive, but the easiest solution the world came up with was for some guy to invest…

Yeah, I’m not sure why trenching is so expensive, I think PG&E was quoting something silly like millions per kilometer. I’m planning on doing like a tenth of a kilometer in a day with a $400 trencher rental pretty soon. I’m sure it’s not apples to apples, but the delta there seems pretty baffling.

For me, the biggest hang up has just been that I’m required by the state to get it inspected before I put in the conduit, and that ramps up the complexity of coordinating things quite a bit, because I’d rather not leave it open too long. If they have to deal with a bunch of bureaucratic coordination, then I could see the actual labor becoming a relatively tiny part of the difficulty/cost.

Re: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

#12

Post by Almondsetat »

delichon wrote: post #3

On the one hand the constellations are doing considerable damage to surface based astronomy. On the other hand they are funding an enormously lower cost of access to orbit and beyond for astronomy up in the sky.

Exactly my thoughts. Scientists drool at the few telescopes we have in orbit. If we could launch more of them for less money at the expense of a busier night sky I don't think they would want to miss on that

Re: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

#13

Post by Havoc »

As much as I sympathize this feels like a necessary evil to me in a sense vaguely accerlationism like.

I do think starlink can do more to help the situation though. Sure they tweaked some of the satellites to minimise it, but they could do more. Presumably the know the precise location and orientation of each sat. Surely that can be packaged into a data stream that helps unfk the images? Maybe with a sprinkling of that AI musk has going? Astronomers is a pretty small crowd...can't be that hard for someone like musk to throw them a bone that acknowledges that they're getting the short end here

Re: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

#14

Post by Cacti »

delichon wrote: post #3

On the one hand the constellations are doing considerable damage to surface based astronomy. On the other hand they are funding an enormously lower cost of access to orbit and beyond for astronomy up in the sky.

Is this something we have evidence for, or is this just in theory?

Re: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

#15

Post by hehdhdjehehegwv »

Almondsetat wrote: post #12
delichon wrote: post #3

On the one hand the constellations are doing considerable damage to surface based astronomy. On the other hand they are funding an enormously lower cost of access to orbit and beyond for astronomy up in the sky.

Exactly my thoughts. Scientists drool at the few telescopes we have in orbit. If we could launch more of them for less money at the expense of a busier night sky I don't think they would want to miss on that

[flagged]

Re: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

#16

Post by oh_my_goodness »

tetris11 wrote: post #2

I know it's a blessing for people who live out in the sticks to have internet.... but is that really such a large use-case to justify entire fleets of these things? How hard is it to run km of wire from the nearest town? To me, these were built for the sole purpose of surveillance, and internet is an afterthought. Edit: yes yes it's expensive, but the easiest solution the world came up with was for some guy to invest…

Hard enough that some people are putting up satellites instead.

EDIT: Say there's some way to put in fiber at $10k per km. Even then, ten million users at 1km per user makes $100 billion.

Re: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

#17

Post by oh_my_goodness »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #6
tetris11 wrote: post #2

I know it's a blessing for people who live out in the sticks to have internet.... but is that really such a large use-case to justify entire fleets of these things? How hard is it to run km of wire from the nearest town? To me, these were built for the sole purpose of surveillance, and internet is an afterthought. Edit: yes yes it's expensive, but the easiest solution the world came up with was for some guy to invest…

> How hard is it to run km of wire from the nearest town? If it's not hard, why hasn't it happened already?

To be fair, people are already using wire.

Re: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

#18

Post by stouset »

hehdhdjehehegwv wrote: post #15
Almondsetat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my thoughts. Scientists drool at the few telescopes we have in orbit. If we could launch more of them for less money at the expense of a busier night sky I don't think they would want to miss on that

[flagged]

Megaconstellations are not a problem for kids looking through telescopes. If anything it’s additional things to wonder at in amazement.

Re: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

#19

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

marcosdumay wrote: post #10
delichon wrote: post #3

On the one hand the constellations are doing considerable damage to surface based astronomy. On the other hand they are funding an enormously lower cost of access to orbit and beyond for astronomy up in the sky.

Yes, the future of astronomy is in space. If the satellites don't disrupt it, light pollution will anyway, or best case, it will be disrupted by atmospheric pollution. There's no lack of clear skies in space.

The future of astronomy is both on the ground and in space.

There are so many things that you can only conceivably do from the ground. You can build vastly larger telescopes on the ground, you can install far heavier instruments (like cameras and spectrographs) on them, you can upgrade and repair components much more easily. You can build massive arrays of radio telescopes. You get the point.

There are some things you can only do from space, or that are better in space, but saying that everything will be done in space is like saying we only need laptops and don't need datacenters. You need both.

Re: How bad are satellite megaconstellations for astronomy?

#20

Post by mercutio2 »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #19
marcosdumay wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the future of astronomy is in space. If the satellites don't disrupt it, light pollution will anyway, or best case, it will be disrupted by atmospheric pollution. There's no lack of clear skies in space.

The future of astronomy is both on the ground and in space. There are so many things that you can only conceivably do from the ground. You can build vastly larger telescopes on the ground, you can install far heavier instruments (like cameras and spectrographs) on them, you can upgrade and repair components much more easily. You can build massive arrays of radio telescopes. You get the point. There are some things yo…

Are there really a lot of ground based telescope components larger than Starship's fairing?

I'm just not seeing the argument for there being any telescope function that wouldn't be better done in orbit, at Starship payload prices.

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