3 ms·
The first few are bright, but as you said only at dawn or dusk. The vast majority of future ones are intended to be dark, with partial mitigations (not perfect,
by natch 6y ago
The first few are bright, but as you said only at dawn or dusk. The vast majority of future ones are intended to be dark, with partial mitigations (not perfect, nobody is making that claim) like dark coating applied by SpaceX at their own expense.
With plentiful availability of orbital delivery, we can also expect more earth-orbiting space telescopes in our future, including private ones and with numbers possibly several orders of magnitude higher than what we have today. These will have higher orbits so that will help, and they will be largely immune to atmospheric effects.
I would suggest the astronomy community ask SpaceX and others to commit to giving key projects free or low cost launch services or ride sharing to orbit, to help compensate for some of the costs you allude to. If asked directly, Elon is often responsive.
- BurningFrog 6y ago> If asked directly, Elon is often responsive. Yeah, but the responses can be unpredictable :)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]