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I mean it is a small inconvenience for telescopes on earth, and not that "it is a small inconvenience in general because there are space telescopes". Genuine

by chr1 7y ago

I mean it is a small inconvenience for telescopes on earth, and not that "it is a small inconvenience in general because there are space telescopes". Genuine question: is your opinion about these satellites based on working in some related field, or simply on dislike of greedy capitalists? I have a phd in physics and have friends who work as astronomers, with whom i've talked about this. Of course there is always a chance that we misunderstand everything, but i have never seen any plausible arguments for why are some people considering starlink to be the end of world for astronomy, and i don't understand why are there so many people on hn defending "poor astronomers" from "The Evil Corporation".

mlyle 7y ago
I have worked on high-end telescope controls and imaging systems. For some types of astronomy --- especially larger fields -- heavily increased use of LEO may reduce the effective hours of observation by 4 hours a night by spoiling most exposures, while creating some impact at other hours. This is more than a 33% reduction in throughput. Even with a smaller satellite population, there's been losses of valuable data. Two images in an early sequence of SN1987A had a (amazing improbable) perfect satellite streak right down the middle. Or there's this past APOD https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1910/M31Before_Scherer_4298.jpg https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1910/M31Before_Scherer_4298... where we see the effect of the current satellite population (and a few planes with the ~10 parallel lines from upper right to lower left) on a big stack of images of Andromeda. Zooming in makes it obvious there are many more trails than leap out -- including a few neat tumbling objects's with periodic brightness changes (not the plane strobes). What's tripling the number of satellites going to do? I am concerned about increasing satellite counts for a few reasons (including the potential debris problems) I don't think it should preclude progress, but existing and future stakeholders (astronomers, people who enjoy dark skies, current/future users of LEO) should be considered.

by chr1 7y ago

mlyle 7y ago

I have worked on high-end telescope controls and imaging systems. For some types of astronomy --- especially larger fields -- heavily increased use of LEO may reduce the effective hours of observation by 4 hours a night by spoiling most exposures, while creating some impact at other hours. This is more than a 33% reduction in throughput. Even with a smaller satellite population, there's been losses of valuable data. Two images in an early sequence of SN1987A had a (amazing improbable) perfect satellite streak right down the middle. Or there's this past APOD https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1910/M31Before_Scherer_4298.jpg https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1910/M31Before_Scherer_4298... where we see the effect of the current satellite population (and a few planes with the ~10 parallel lines from upper right to lower left) on a big stack of images of Andromeda. Zooming in makes it obvious there are many more trails than leap out -- including a few neat tumbling objects's with periodic brightness changes (not the plane strobes). What's tripling the number of satellites going to do? I am concerned about increasing satellite counts for a few reasons (including the potential debris problems) I don't think it should preclude progress, but existing and future stakeholders (astronomers, people who enjoy dark skies, current/future users of LEO) should be considered.