7 ms·

> Night-time temperatures can drop to -900C wait, what?

by tandr 6y ago

teilo 6y ago
I believe that's supposed to be -90C. Clearly a typo.
noja 6y ago
You'd expect better from Sky At Night. (Wikipedia says -143 °C, -225 °F)
- midasuni 6y ago
  The attack on spacex at the start - the one company that’s actually likely to put sky at night readers on Mars - took me out of it before the 900C hilarity.
  - onethought 6y ago
    The star link complaint seems kind of like how people must have been when telegram/power lines went up.
    - galago 6y ago
      Yeah, early above-ground telephone wiring was a horrible mess. This is one of those intermediate steps where the satellites are are awful. Even as they're implemented there should be a plan to get rid of them. If you search from pictures of overhead wires you can see what it was like for a while. https://uh.edu/engines/nycandwires.jpg https://uh.edu/engines/nycandwires.jpg
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      Astronomers, amateur or otherwise, have been complaining about "light pollution" forever. Traditionally, it's about night-time lighting on Earth that isn't shielded from transmitting light upwards. It startled me to find (in a long ago HN thread) that people, presumably nerdy types, are not generally sympathetic to the complaints. I somehow assumed that universal lukewarm quasi-environmental feelings would mean people would go "yeah, lighting the night sky is inefficient and dumb, and astronomy makes pretty pictures" but apparently "fuck astronomers" is a popular opinion.
      - saalweachter 6y ago
        > ...but apparently "fuck astronomers" is a popular opinion. They know what they did. (Leap seconds.)
        Uke 6y ago
        fun fact - mars has great time zones. No silly country borders and also had them even before we had time zones on earth https://marscalendar.com/time-zones https://marscalendar.com/time-zones
      - morlockabove 6y ago
        The kinds of people who like building things will be less sympathetic to environmental concerns when those concerns are 'don't build that, leave the world untainted by human hand'- there's a difference between polluting by building/placing something of value somewhere and polluting as a pure stupid ugly externality. Engineer-y people might be inclined to hate the latter but not the former.
        perl4ever 6y ago
        The aspect of amateur astronomy culture that discouraged me was the awful code published in Sky & Telescope back in the late 80s or early 90s. They used to have a policy that in order to be compatible with the least common denominator of their readers, they required published programs to be in BASIC. And not just BASIC, but basic BASIC, with line numbers. As far as I was concerned, it was unreadable and obsolete since about 1985. It also probably influenced me away from ever learning Forth by association. Not to mention, that when I got a book on astronomical computer algorithms, it turned out that the available implementations were in Fortran, which to my taste was as bad or worse.
        Uhrheber 6y ago
        Fortran is still popular in scientific computing, and modern compilers are pretty good.
    - titzer 6y ago
      Power lines still look like garbage, IMHO. After having lived some years in Germany where they are almost universally buried (except high voltage long-haul lines), I can't stop seeing them everywhere in the US. So ugly. Every sky and scene just spoiled with rickety old third-world "oh let's just put this here for now" trash. Like a scratch right across my eyeballs.
      - lovemenot 6y ago
        Not sure where in the USA you are looking. If it's in a seismically active region there could be factors other than cost and aesthetics. Here in Japan power lines are seldom buried for this reason.
        titzer 6y ago
        I've been everywhere, man.
        PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
        Although there are some areas where power (and comms) cables are buried, it is overwhelmingly common in the US for them to be pole-mounted.
  - dotancohen 6y ago
    That was simply SEO talking. There was no other way to shoehorn a link to their Starlink webpage into the article.
  - tokai 6y ago
    Astronomers, both amateur and professional, have a legit issue with starlink. SpaceX are even trying to mitigate the issue - because of astronomers pointing it out. So I can see nothing wrong in a magazine for hobby astronomers taking a jab at starlink.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Retric 6y ago
      According to the astronomer I talked to, starlink has a negligible impact on professionals. Some disruption at the beginning, but fairly easy to account for. There is already plenty of man made objects that need to be accounted for like the ISS, any of which could cause an issue but it’s a tiny fraction of data that’s impacted and therefore it can be removed fairly easily. That said, amateur astronomers doing long exposure shots will likely be impacted.
      - astrophysician 6y ago
        Simply not true, starlink will have a real impact on research (see e.g. https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increased-deployment-satellite-constellations https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increa... for the impact on LSST) and will make some science impossible to do. Ironically, amateur long exposure shots will be fine because amateur astronomy doesn’t rely on pixel-level brightnesses and you can easily subtract out streaks in a way that’s pleasing to the eye. Whether or not you think it’s justified, it’s not true to say this will not impact astronomy. Some science cases will be fine, others will be significantly impacted and still others will be SOL and impossible to do.
        Retric 6y ago
        So the “Rubin Observatory is an extreme case for the sensitivity of astronomical observations to satellite constellations because of its unprecedented ability to repeatedly monitor the sky widely and deeply.” And their worried about potentially losing as little as 0.3% of pixel level data, that sounds about right. I am not saying it’s impact is meaningless, just they could offset their impact with funding, rather than it being a massive issue on it’s own.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    Why do you care? I'm not concern trolling, I just worry/(am curious about) that some people have a quasi-emotional connection with Musk's companies. Trust but verify, as the saying goes.
crazydoggers 6y ago
That would be something... especially given that absolute zero, the lowest temperature possible when matter ceases movement is -273C. It’s a funny typo. Always makes you wonder how much other stuff they get wrong that’s missed.
holografix 6y ago
That’d be far beyond absolute zero temp of −273.15° so must be a typo.
messe 6y ago
That’s with windchill.
asimjalis 6y ago
This is also the main theme of the comments on the site. Is it possible that typos are comment bait?
I-M-S 6y ago
-90°C got transcribed wrong (the degree symbol as another zero)
- baxtr 6y ago
  F’ing AI! They ruin everything
karimmaassen 6y ago
"Feels like -900C"
yason 6y ago
At -900 C, Kelvin is dead.
- throw8932894 6y ago
  In 2021 lord Kelvin is definitely dead.

> Night-time temperatures can drop to -900C wait, what?

by tandr 6y ago

> Night-time temperatures can drop to -900C wait, what?

teilo 6y ago

I believe that's supposed to be -90C. Clearly a typo.

noja 6y ago

You'd expect better from Sky At Night. (Wikipedia says -143 °C, -225 °F)

midasuni 6y ago
The attack on spacex at the start - the one company that’s actually likely to put sky at night readers on Mars - took me out of it before the 900C hilarity.
- onethought 6y ago
  The star link complaint seems kind of like how people must have been when telegram/power lines went up.
  - galago 6y ago
    Yeah, early above-ground telephone wiring was a horrible mess. This is one of those intermediate steps where the satellites are are awful. Even as they're implemented there should be a plan to get rid of them. If you search from pictures of overhead wires you can see what it was like for a while. https://uh.edu/engines/nycandwires.jpg https://uh.edu/engines/nycandwires.jpg
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    Astronomers, amateur or otherwise, have been complaining about "light pollution" forever. Traditionally, it's about night-time lighting on Earth that isn't shielded from transmitting light upwards. It startled me to find (in a long ago HN thread) that people, presumably nerdy types, are not generally sympathetic to the complaints. I somehow assumed that universal lukewarm quasi-environmental feelings would mean people would go "yeah, lighting the night sky is inefficient and dumb, and astronomy makes pretty pictures" but apparently "fuck astronomers" is a popular opinion.
    - saalweachter 6y ago
      > ...but apparently "fuck astronomers" is a popular opinion. They know what they did. (Leap seconds.)
      - Uke 6y ago
        fun fact - mars has great time zones. No silly country borders and also had them even before we had time zones on earth https://marscalendar.com/time-zones https://marscalendar.com/time-zones
    - morlockabove 6y ago
      The kinds of people who like building things will be less sympathetic to environmental concerns when those concerns are 'don't build that, leave the world untainted by human hand'- there's a difference between polluting by building/placing something of value somewhere and polluting as a pure stupid ugly externality. Engineer-y people might be inclined to hate the latter but not the former.
      - perl4ever 6y ago
        The aspect of amateur astronomy culture that discouraged me was the awful code published in Sky & Telescope back in the late 80s or early 90s. They used to have a policy that in order to be compatible with the least common denominator of their readers, they required published programs to be in BASIC. And not just BASIC, but basic BASIC, with line numbers. As far as I was concerned, it was unreadable and obsolete since about 1985. It also probably influenced me away from ever learning Forth by association. Not to mention, that when I got a book on astronomical computer algorithms, it turned out that the available implementations were in Fortran, which to my taste was as bad or worse.
        Uhrheber 6y ago
        Fortran is still popular in scientific computing, and modern compilers are pretty good.
  - titzer 6y ago
    Power lines still look like garbage, IMHO. After having lived some years in Germany where they are almost universally buried (except high voltage long-haul lines), I can't stop seeing them everywhere in the US. So ugly. Every sky and scene just spoiled with rickety old third-world "oh let's just put this here for now" trash. Like a scratch right across my eyeballs.
    - lovemenot 6y ago
      Not sure where in the USA you are looking. If it's in a seismically active region there could be factors other than cost and aesthetics. Here in Japan power lines are seldom buried for this reason.
      - titzer 6y ago
        I've been everywhere, man.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
        Although there are some areas where power (and comms) cables are buried, it is overwhelmingly common in the US for them to be pole-mounted.
- dotancohen 6y ago
  That was simply SEO talking. There was no other way to shoehorn a link to their Starlink webpage into the article.
- tokai 6y ago
  Astronomers, both amateur and professional, have a legit issue with starlink. SpaceX are even trying to mitigate the issue - because of astronomers pointing it out. So I can see nothing wrong in a magazine for hobby astronomers taking a jab at starlink.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 6y ago
    According to the astronomer I talked to, starlink has a negligible impact on professionals. Some disruption at the beginning, but fairly easy to account for. There is already plenty of man made objects that need to be accounted for like the ISS, any of which could cause an issue but it’s a tiny fraction of data that’s impacted and therefore it can be removed fairly easily. That said, amateur astronomers doing long exposure shots will likely be impacted.
    - astrophysician 6y ago
      Simply not true, starlink will have a real impact on research (see e.g. https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increased-deployment-satellite-constellations https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increa... for the impact on LSST) and will make some science impossible to do. Ironically, amateur long exposure shots will be fine because amateur astronomy doesn’t rely on pixel-level brightnesses and you can easily subtract out streaks in a way that’s pleasing to the eye. Whether or not you think it’s justified, it’s not true to say this will not impact astronomy. Some science cases will be fine, others will be significantly impacted and still others will be SOL and impossible to do.
      - Retric 6y ago
        So the “Rubin Observatory is an extreme case for the sensitivity of astronomical observations to satellite constellations because of its unprecedented ability to repeatedly monitor the sky widely and deeply.” And their worried about potentially losing as little as 0.3% of pixel level data, that sounds about right. I am not saying it’s impact is meaningless, just they could offset their impact with funding, rather than it being a massive issue on it’s own.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Why do you care? I'm not concern trolling, I just worry/(am curious about) that some people have a quasi-emotional connection with Musk's companies. Trust but verify, as the saying goes.

crazydoggers 6y ago

That would be something... especially given that absolute zero, the lowest temperature possible when matter ceases movement is -273C. It’s a funny typo. Always makes you wonder how much other stuff they get wrong that’s missed.

holografix 6y ago

That’d be far beyond absolute zero temp of −273.15° so must be a typo.

messe 6y ago

That’s with windchill.

asimjalis 6y ago

This is also the main theme of the comments on the site. Is it possible that typos are comment bait?

I-M-S 6y ago

-90°C got transcribed wrong (the degree symbol as another zero)

baxtr 6y ago
F’ing AI! They ruin everything

karimmaassen 6y ago

"Feels like -900C"

yason 6y ago

At -900 C, Kelvin is dead.

throw8932894 6y ago
In 2021 lord Kelvin is definitely dead.