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I don't think most astronomers knew that there would need to be 50K more satellites for remote internet to work. Maybe if someone had told them it's not just a

• Robotbeat 5y ago
  Astronomers were told how big Starlink would be. In fact, the FCC had a public comment period for Starlink before it was launched. Just no one in the astronomy community took Starlink seriously enough to say anything. (Granted, SpaceX also didn’t know it would be a big impact to astronomy either, but at least SpaceX quickly altered the design of Starlink to mitigate brightness once the problem was apparent.)
  • dylan604 5y ago
    This is one of those things where I don't buy any of it. The first time I heard a number connected to a Starlink constellation, the first thing I thought about was how many more dirty images are going to be in my footage. So, yes, I happen to be an amateur amateur astrophotographer, but it was litterally the first thing I thought about. Never did I think there's some web form to fill out with this complaint. So I'm sitting here thinking that if I thought about it, surely others have as well. It's not like I'm some amazing genius that sees things others don't so let me reach out to some esoteric gov't agency that I don't even know is a thing to do. We've also known about these issues with the much smaller number of Iridium statellites to the point there are apps/websites dedicated to tell you when you can catch an Iridium flare. We also know what the effects of GeoSync sats, Hubble, ISS, etc look like in images. This is not something new. TL;DR: Stop victim blaming