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This conflating of two different types of things is quite bad in my opinion and it wrecks credibility. Real light pollution (not satellites) completely obscures

This conflating of two different types of things is quite bad in my opinion and it wrecks credibility. Real light pollution (not satellites) completely obscures the night sky from view. Satellites do not in fact obscure night sky viewing in any way (you've always able to see tons of them at night in dark areas even before Starlink), they don't even obscure amateur photography, it just takes a bit of software work to remove them. The only reason non-astronomers are up in rage about Starlink is because of "billionaire boogeyman scapegoating". They are ONLY a concern for professional astronomy using super sensitive huge aperture astronomical telescopes. They raise the noise floor of the CCD because of oversaturated pixels spilling energy into other pixels. Which is why companies like SpaceX have worked with those people to reduce the brightness to reduce that affect. Even then, for many types of observations they are not an issue. See: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/palomar-survey-instrument-analyzes-impact-of-starlink-satellites https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/palomar-survey-instrument...

MrStonedOne 5y ago
jimkleiber 5y ago
I was not trying to conflate two things, I was mostly trying to highlight and ask about how we govern orbits that don't abide by national land boundaries. I'm not sure how it wrecked credibility, as I don't think I said that getting rid of light pollution would have no effect—I feel pretty certain that without light pollution, one can see so much more of the night sky. That being said, yes, I was unsure to which extent, once light pollution was minimal, that satellites would obscure the view, mostly to the naked eye. I know that sometimes when we cut out signals, others will appear more prominent, as just as when the house is quiet I hear the fridge and other sounds that I wouldn't normally here. So if the satellites aren't that bothersome to the naked eye (or to cameras and astronomers) then I'm relieved to hear that and grateful for you pointing that out. I still think the main purpose of my OP was to ask about how we govern global spaces with national governments.

MrStonedOne 5y ago

jimkleiber 5y ago

I was not trying to conflate two things, I was mostly trying to highlight and ask about how we govern orbits that don't abide by national land boundaries. I'm not sure how it wrecked credibility, as I don't think I said that getting rid of light pollution would have no effect—I feel pretty certain that without light pollution, one can see so much more of the night sky. That being said, yes, I was unsure to which extent, once light pollution was minimal, that satellites would obscure the view, mostly to the naked eye. I know that sometimes when we cut out signals, others will appear more prominent, as just as when the house is quiet I hear the fridge and other sounds that I wouldn't normally here. So if the satellites aren't that bothersome to the naked eye (or to cameras and astronomers) then I'm relieved to hear that and grateful for you pointing that out. I still think the main purpose of my OP was to ask about how we govern global spaces with national governments.