3 ms·
Forgive my ignorance of astronomy, but considering all the light pollution that's been a problem for years, why haven't astronomers moved to using telescopes th
by netizen-936824 5y ago
Forgive my ignorance of astronomy, but considering all the light pollution that's been a problem for years, why haven't astronomers moved to using telescopes that are primarily orbiting satellites instead of on earth?
It seems to me, again in my ignorance, that this could solve multiple problems and we may be able to continue getting solid readings while light and satellite pollution increases
- gus_massa 5y agoFrom a previous similar discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22066152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22066152 that takeaway is that professional astronomers have software that detect these kind of things in the long exposure photographs, and drop the frames or the parts of the frames with problems (birds, planes, satellites, ...).
- eesmith 5y agoIt is significantly more expensive to put telescopes into space. And much harder to fix problems. Or upgrade. And more expensive to get the data. There are many projects which work just fine with ground-based telescopes. Observatories already work with nearby light sources to help lower light pollution or make it more manageable. For example, installing shields on the streetlights so the light is all directed downward, reducing sky glow. There's already a movement to reduce existing light pollution. https://www.darksky.org/ https://www.darksky.org/ .