51–60 of 119 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is it relevant that you're a taxpayer?
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/07/spacex-starlink-wins-nearly-...
I fear this is only the start of it. A minimum of 3-4 constellations more will probably be launched in the near future (Russia, China, EU). Their obvious dual-use nature makes them tempting, and a military target if a large conflict will take place in the near future. I hope their lower orbit will help any space junk burn up fast.
Add a black umbrella to each satellite: when they pass through the critical region where they are visible in the night sky while still being sunlit, pop the brollies up. We will fly them in the shade! You could paint them black but they’d probably get quite hot.
Yeah, I kinda get why astronomers are not particularly happy with satellite constellations.
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If you blow up a satellite, half of it will end up going slower and half will go faster. The slower bits will probably burn up nicely, but the faster bits will just elevate their orbit.
I doubt they will elevate their orbit by enough to be a problem. Some bits will come down in hours, some will come down in a year - even in the worst case where it takes out everything in low earth orbit in 5 years everything will be clear and we can start over. Higher orbits are the real worry, even the things slowed down mostly stay in orbit for centuries - but higher orbits are mostly a lot higher.
The Iridium-Kosmos collision fragments have been up there since 2009, and that's a massive spray of junk just from one disintegration in LEO.
I, a taxpayer, would rather have a cellphone signal in a remote location than lots of amazing pictures of a comet. And I just don't see a solution or compromise that could work. The utility of neat picture vs full cell signal in a Montana canyon cannot be won by taking more pictures and showing me the problem. I made my decision already.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Opinion: We need to move our astronomical observation equipment off of Earth and onto other bodies, especially radio astronomy, which, unlike telescopes that operate in other wavelengths, is still affected by Earth's emissions in LEO/near-Earth space. We should put a radio telescope on the far side of the moon [0] to benefit from the thousands of kilometers of lunar material separating Earth's emissions from telescop…
Unfortunately, that seems to be the only solution. However, it has serious disadvantages. It will exclude the poorer from astronomical research, except within the limits enabled by whatever cooperation the richer will be willing to do with them. For the richer, that will make astronomical research much more expensive. When even USA, who claims to be the richest country, cuts a lot of the scientific funding, this make…
And starlink (and the like) have more uses beyond good remote connectivity. They're a big reason why Ukraine didn't lose to Russia. They're also a potential avenue for people in oppressed nations to talk to the rest of the world (eg: Iran has a death penalty for starlink usage to counter this point).
Why are satellite trails not continuous lines Is the camera exposure taking a few seconds of break between takes that get stacked later with some "missing" moments in between?
I'm not aware of a digital camera that can take a 10 minute continuous exposure, but maybe there are special astronomy cameras that can?
I've taken multi-hour continuous exposures on my iPhone + iPad (both "normal" and "light trail" variants.)
By the looks of [0], you can do at least 90 seconds on the Olympus E-M5 MK II - which is what I have and I'll see if it can do 10 minutes tonight.
[0] https://www.olympuspassion.com/2019/08/26/long-exposures-wit...
Yeah, I kinda get why astronomers are not particularly happy with satellite constellations.
Yeah, I kinda get why astronomers are not particularly happy with satellite constellations.
Not to disagree, but stacking a series of exposures with a sigma-clipped mean (or similar) should still get a nice image.
Is this all / mostly Starlink?