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For part a) that is only true for a small selection of observations. A huge proportion of astronomical science comes out of surveys that typically use large fie

For part a) that is only true for a small selection of observations. A huge proportion of astronomical science comes out of surveys that typically use large fields of view. Additionally, observation times can be very long, so even if you are looking at a small bit of sky you can still end up having things ruined by a satellite. For part b) you are completely incorrect in your assumptions here. The majority of the cost and effort of telescopes is really in the instrumentation (the 'cameras' that are strapped to the back of the telescope). To get the most out of an observing facility, we need access to these to change them, fix them, and improve them. This is not possible with a space-based mission.

shadowgovt 3y ago
I feel like there's a whole world of information theory that either astronomers or (I suspect) people making arguments on behalf of astronomers are unaware of. Long-duration observations can't be disrupted badly by a quick satellite jaunt across the sky. That's just a noise blip. Less than 0.00001% of the data collected. Isolate it and scrub it. Similarly, wide-field observations have a lot of data to work with to figure out what the field is supposed to look like vs. what it looks like with a satellite-pass event. Isolate them and scrub them. Satellites and deep stellar phenomena are different scales of event at different ranges and speeds. A Fourier transform should make them show up as obviously separable. (... and again, all of this is assuming you have to scrub this data without a-priori knowledge, when the disrupting event is a well-documented passover with clear ephemera. If it is mandated that satellite companies publish the ephemera, which I think is a perfectly reasonable burden upon them, it should be even easier to separate signal and noise). I do see your point regarding (b) though; space telescope science may require a wholly new approach relative to terrestrial science.

shadowgovt 3y ago

I feel like there's a whole world of information theory that either astronomers or (I suspect) people making arguments on behalf of astronomers are unaware of. Long-duration observations can't be disrupted badly by a quick satellite jaunt across the sky. That's just a noise blip. Less than 0.00001% of the data collected. Isolate it and scrub it. Similarly, wide-field observations have a lot of data to work with to figure out what the field is supposed to look like vs. what it looks like with a satellite-pass event. Isolate them and scrub them. Satellites and deep stellar phenomena are different scales of event at different ranges and speeds. A Fourier transform should make them show up as obviously separable. (... and again, all of this is assuming you have to scrub this data without a-priori knowledge, when the disrupting event is a well-documented passover with clear ephemera. If it is mandated that satellite companies publish the ephemera, which I think is a perfectly reasonable burden upon them, it should be even easier to separate signal and noise). I do see your point regarding (b) though; space telescope science may require a wholly new approach relative to terrestrial science.