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Goodbye amateur astronomy https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=153933 https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=1...

by guelo 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
LeoPanthera 7y ago
I don't know how practical or useful this idea is, but I wonder how useful a camera on the back of the Starlink satellites would be, looking up.
- mkl 7y ago
  I think it would be pretty useless. It's not the camera you need, but the telescope, which would be too heavy to justify on these tiny satellites.
  - sq_ 7y ago
    After the first Starlink launch, Musk made a number of comments about being willing to experiment with launching some telescope-equipped Starlink sats since they expect the per-sat costs to be so low. If you had dozens to hundreds up there, you could probably do some useful interferometry even with small telescopes.
favorande 7y ago
+
derekp7 7y ago
If you don't mind me asking, What time of night was that image taken? That looks like sunlight reflected off the satellites, so it must have been just after sunset or just prior to dawn (where the satellites are illuminated but it is dark on the ground) -- or am I mistaken? And is that still an issue after the satellites were raised to their target orbit? Also, this being a composite image, I'm assuming it is from multiple exposures. Can the software that merges the images together also filter out the satellites? And how is it that just 60 satellites do this, but the 2000 or so currently in orbit don't exhibit this behavior?
- sq_ 7y ago
  There was definitely a huge amount of controversy over this after the first Starlink launch. If I'm remembering correctly, the problems got significantly better after the satellites moved to their final orbits and oriented their solar panels correctly. Additionally, SpaceX promised to do their best to lower the albedo of this second set of sats, which, based on side-by-side pictures of the two stacks of sats, they seem to have done. In my opinion, there's definitely reason to be afraid of the effects of Starlink on astronomy, but SpaceX also seems reasonably receptive to making changes in order to lessen the impact.

Goodbye amateur astronomy https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=153933 https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=1...

by guelo 7y ago

Goodbye amateur astronomy https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=153933 https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=1...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

LeoPanthera 7y ago

I don't know how practical or useful this idea is, but I wonder how useful a camera on the back of the Starlink satellites would be, looking up.

mkl 7y ago
I think it would be pretty useless. It's not the camera you need, but the telescope, which would be too heavy to justify on these tiny satellites.
- sq_ 7y ago
  After the first Starlink launch, Musk made a number of comments about being willing to experiment with launching some telescope-equipped Starlink sats since they expect the per-sat costs to be so low. If you had dozens to hundreds up there, you could probably do some useful interferometry even with small telescopes.

favorande 7y ago

derekp7 7y ago

If you don't mind me asking, What time of night was that image taken? That looks like sunlight reflected off the satellites, so it must have been just after sunset or just prior to dawn (where the satellites are illuminated but it is dark on the ground) -- or am I mistaken? And is that still an issue after the satellites were raised to their target orbit? Also, this being a composite image, I'm assuming it is from multiple exposures. Can the software that merges the images together also filter out the satellites? And how is it that just 60 satellites do this, but the 2000 or so currently in orbit don't exhibit this behavior?

sq_ 7y ago
There was definitely a huge amount of controversy over this after the first Starlink launch. If I'm remembering correctly, the problems got significantly better after the satellites moved to their final orbits and oriented their solar panels correctly. Additionally, SpaceX promised to do their best to lower the albedo of this second set of sats, which, based on side-by-side pictures of the two stacks of sats, they seem to have done. In my opinion, there's definitely reason to be afraid of the effects of Starlink on astronomy, but SpaceX also seems reasonably receptive to making changes in order to lessen the impact.