The BlueWalker 3 antenna is white, not mirrored. It will reflect sunlight like a lambertian reflector, not like a specular reflector as you suggest. https://as

The BlueWalker 3 antenna is white, not mirrored. It will reflect sunlight like a lambertian reflector, not like a specular reflector as you suggest. https://ast-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-03-18-BlueWalker-3-BW3-array-Microns-1024x737.jpg https://ast-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-03-1... SpaceX has offered their space-rated mirror technology at cost to other satellite manufacturers, but it seems AST SpaceMobile hasn't taken them up on the offer. I can't see any mirrored surfaces on BlueWalker 3. >that means from all other spots on earth it will be extremely dim The second paper I linked (see Figure 1) shows a minimum magnitude after array deployment of 5.5 magnitude, from multiple observatories at multiple locations on the Earth. That's still 10 times brighter than the IAU limit. >just look elsewhere in the sky The hottest thing right now is whole-sky surveys like Vera Rubin (which are important because they can alert other telescopes to transient events), which can't really do that because they're already looking at... the whole sky.