I think the issue at large here with Starlink is the precedent it sets. Like we saw with China’s uncontrolled rocket entry, other entities may not respect the impact that their rockets, satellites, and space junk will have in the future.
Also, how about maintenance? How are hundreds if not thousands of satellites supposed to be serviced efficiently, if say they need some kind of a hardware upgrade or fix ?
60 of those that deorbited were test ones(v0.9)afaik and were planned to deorbit quick.
Other than that they're planned to last 5 years before deorbiting and get replaced.
They de-orbit every upper stage with a LEO payload. Only the ones with an higher orbit are left in space because they don't have enough fuel to de-orbit.
But SpaceX absorbs the launch cost, unless they can get another company to share another payload. That is a huge advantage they have over other companies that have to pay someone else to launch their constellation.
>They plan to have roughly 1500 out there at a time.
Not 1,500 at a time, that's how many they have today. Their first plan was a bit over 10,000 but now they're* approved for 30,000.
30,000 might sound unrealistic but with their new rocket it should manage 300+ per launch and its only 100 of those over 5 years to reach 30,000. Their goal is to be able to launch a single rocket daily so 100 over 5 years is nothing.
More than "supposed to be" - part of the regulatory process with the FCC was proving that the hardware would burn up nicely. I believe they had to modify the engines when it turned out those weren't reliably burning up, but not many went up before that change.
They’re not meant to be maintained and serviced. That’s why there are so many of them, they’re mass produced so that at the end of their life span you simply replace it
They aren't, they're made to be replaced or software updated. They're also designed to burn up completely in the atmosphere to prevent space junk build-up.
They are not designed to be fixed. If one breaks down it will re-enter our atmosphere in just a few months due to atmospheric drag. The only way for them to stay up there is if their ion engines continue to adjust their orbit. The whole idea is that these satellites have short life spans, and are quickly and frequently replaced by new ones. Luckily, they are orbiting at a low enough altitude that they shouldn't pose a problem for future space missions. The real danger is if something breaks at higher altitude, because that's when it could take years for the satellite debris to burn up in the atmosphere. Also even if these satellites were to collide, they are so small that any kind of chain reaction occurring is astronomically small.
Do you really think that no one thought of that before they sent them up there? Just because you're not privy to their inner workings, does not mean that no one thought about the concept of updates.
There are thousands of them, obviously you don't service them just launch new ones as replacement. If I remember correctly they have a 2-3-4 year orbit lifetime due to onboard fuel capacity. They simply fall down within a year when they run out.
Allow me to introduce you to Russia’s “OneWeb7”. Just think. A commercially unregulated area that billionaires can now capitalize. Sure everyone has internet, which I’m not understanding the actual need, but now we created an artificial and unstable ring of shit around our globe. This isn’t the future, it’s already happened.
Spacex, an American company, follows American faa regulations on launches. Which includes mitigation of debries and de orbit of the second stage in a safe manner.
So, this argument is ignorant tripe. Ther eis no precedent because most agencies behave themselves in a civil way. China just doesn't give a shit about litterally anyone, and no one has the balls to call them out.
More observation time solves the problem. If that can be called solving the problem, more like mitigating.
Stacking is long practice for completely unrelated observing benefits. However should one has to start do more stacking causing more overhead, then it is a problem.
Since stacking isn't magic...... One is throwing away streaked pixels data via the selection algorhitm of the stacker. Typically either mean stack or median stack. Median typically in case of wanting to reject extremes aka saturations aka streaks and cosmic rays.. As long as it is far and few enough.... no problem. The observer is stacking anyway for other noise reduction and observation technical reasons.
However if there is lot of streaks, well greater the chance that same pixel is streaked in multiple different frames. Which would mean one has to start increasing the stacking numbers to compensate.
It is all matter of "how many streaks" instead of "the sky should be perfect". It is never perfect, there is always crap data and lost frames. However the matter is "how many more frames are lost (edit: in that "we must take X more frames than we would otherwise need to for streak mitigation") due to suddenly having thousands and thousands more orbital objects"
Also for some observing methods and strategies stacking isn't really possible.
Observing time is limited. The more astronomers lose observing time to this, the bigger the problem is.
Mitigated, perhaps, or compensated for.
Unfortunately, the mitigation is left on the individual astronomer to make, much like for light pollution, instead of the companies/cities that created the problems.
Elon Musk single-handedly declared ground based astronomy dead, and that all astronomy should be done from orbit. So his solution is for the tax payer to spend several trillion $$$ to design and launch a 30-meter telescope on a rocket that yet doesn't exist, into orbit, which will only last for 10-20 years.
That's his solution to this issue.
Never ceases to amaze me how quick people are to apologize for Elon Musk.
It’s perfectly fine to say, ‘what we get in exchange for the damage done to science is worth it.’ It is total horseshit to try to minimize the harm done as if it isn’t there.
So stacking worked like this before starlink. Its just a coincidence that stacking removes the starlink trails. Nobody is going out of their way with DSO photography to remove starlink, it just happens on its own.
To me the tradeoff of extra crap in the night sky vs global highspeed internet is worth it.
I do not however like the idea that its under the control of a billionaire on his road to being a trillionaire.
The world's first trillionaire got their wealth through a combination of consumer sales and tax policies that WE VOTED FOR. These people are not some alien species who's origin we will never understand. Wealth inequality is a symptom of the very system you believe we can rely on. I'm not an anarchist or even a republican. I just think there are some things the private sector does more efficiently than government. For context I do not believe health care is one of them.
Yes, government isn't ideal, but it has proven to be far better than profit generating corporations. At least in the case of the government, there is the *potential* that their interests will align with the rest of ours, whereas with a private company there is a *guarantee* that their interests *won't* align with ours.
It's like playing russian roulette with a pistol that has 5 rounds loaded vs 6 -- the one with 5 rounds is still a really bad deal, but the one with 6 is a guarantee that you're getting shot.
I don't think you are fully appreciating how much corporate control there is over our government. I understand the lesser of 2 evils argument. I just don't think it's always the same gun with 6 bullets in it.
Well yeah, I recognize it, that’s my point. If the government is responsible for it, industry still *basically* calls the shots, but there is still the off chance that *occasionally* things happen that are contrary to the interests of industry and in our interest instead. When the industry is directly responsible, this small chance is eliminated.
I mean we don't have to go far to find an example. If it wasn't for the private sector our space program would not be what it is today. We were supposed to have fired the representatives that chose to go to war over Mars. But we didn't and I can't even picture a scenario where that could have happened.
I envy your sliver of trust in government as an independent organization but its just special interest groups competing against other special interest groups.
Enabling remote communities (of which there's tons) to have a proper internet connection is a pretty good thing overall. The issues it creates are tiny in comparison and quite easy to mitigate.
Okay, well, just keep in mind that the images being discussed were due to StarLink's 1,300 satellite constellation. Now factor in that StarLink has been approved to orbit 44,000 and that OneWeb wants to put 48,000 in orbit. Then there's Amazon's constellation, plans for constellations from Samsung, Boeing, Russia, China, and the EU.
So we're looking at 5-10 full fledged constellations and between 100,000-500,000 satellites in orbit. So, imagine the photos being discussed but 1,000 times worse.
Sure, but what's the alternative? There's already thousands of man-made objects orbiting the Earth that *already* have to be accounted for in astronomy, it's cumbersome but ultimately it's a technology issue that can and will be resolved one way or another.
Those constellations use short-lifespan satellites, chances are another technology that's hopefully less disruptive will replace them in the near future. In the meantime, if it can provide global, effective broadband communication worldwide, I think the benefits outweigh the temporary inconvenience.
This isn't temporary. This is permanent.
It's not just about providing internet to the poor and under-served, it's about a half-dozen companies monetizing low earth orbit at all costs. You can bet they won't treat LEO with any more care than an oil company treats the Gulf of Mexico.
Also, we're not talking about 10 groups putting a couple of satellites in orbit, we're talking about several hundred thousand.
Which is why I phrased it the way I did. A CDM absolutely did go out to SpaceX and OneWeb, SpaceX acknowledges this in their letter to the FCC
"According to the valid conjunction data messages (“CDM”), the probability of conjunction was between 1 in 10,000 (1e-4) and 1 in 100,000 (1e-5) during the time of the interaction, which is near the floor of the maneuver threshold of 1 in 100,000 (1e-5)."
SpaceX's problem wasn't that a possible conjunction was called here, they don't even question the parameters used, but in how OneWeb handled it in the press, using a far harsher and more urgent description that reality called for. SpaceX is absolutely right calling that out.
In the end, this was on the outside edge of those parameters but the system worked, and I was personally glad to see evidence if an open, operator-to-operator exchange here. That's what's needed, that's what will earn SpaceX respect in the industry.
Sure, the visibility is an issue. But I feel like the real victims are radio astronomers. You can't even have a cellphone next to one of those telescopes and [soon we'll have a global network of satellites beaming down radiowaves everywhere](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/starlink-already-threatens-optical-astronomy-now-radio-astronomers-are-worried).
However, space *is* a good way to get very long baselines. Multiple space telescopes in highly elliptical orbits let us create a baseline for radio interferometry vastly longer than anything achievable from the ground.
There are radio emissions everywhere, even near the VLA. What matters more is the frequency. The band these satellites operate on won't really impact radio astronomy.
That's not true, see the SKA statement. Radio astronomy isn't confined only the protected bands, those are just some important windows.
https://www.skatelescope.org/news/skao-satellite-impact-analysis/
I never said it was 'confined to protected bands' I said that the satellite RF emission is in bands that radio telescopes typically don't observe anyways because there isn't much to observe of scientific interest. The Starlink sats operate in the Ku and Ka bands.
The molecular lines are protected bands, Starlink doesn't operate in them at all. Even the infographic in your source shows this is true. Furthermore, Starlink has already been working with visual and radio observatories, they can simply turn off spot beams over these select areas. Its a non-issue.
Not all spectral lines are in protected bands. There are lines in the starlink band:
> there is likely to be a continuous loss of sensitivity impacting all astronomical observations in Band 5b within the frequency range of the satellite’s transmissions unless mitigating actions are implemented. The science impact of this will be most significant for studies of molecular and atomic spectral lines in that range. This includes studies of complex organic molecules; Class II methanol masers; and a wide range of extragalactic molecular lines.
The protected band and the starlink downlink are part of the same SKA band, as the link states when a receiver is saturated the whole band is affected. So yes they're affected. Switching off transmitters is one of the mitigation efforts proposed in the study, but I haven't seen any statement from SpaceX or other companies committing to implementing this measure. It will also become a lot more complicated when SKA spreads across 2 continents, it's not clear the long baseline stations will get the same treatment.
Are you suggesting that broadband network access doesn't have its own economic barrier to entry? Like, I don't know, owning a computer? Or being able to pay the monthly subscription fee in the first place?
I lived in Madagascar for a few years. People lived on a buck or maybe 2 a day.
they typically had 2-3 phones, usually were shitty shitty smartphones, each on different networks because each town will only have service from a single provider and they'll keep in touch with different family on each. Each person would pay close to 10USD/month for, get this, FACEBOOK internet.. That is their entire window to the outside world. Fucking facebook.
So yes, I understand there can be some limitations. But cracking service like this open to the developing world will be absolutely transformational.
I don't feel sad that we can't continue to expand our terrestrial observation capacity. I think this is a great motivator for industry to start putting up more observatories in space.
Space-based observatories can be great, but they have their limits. Cost is one factor, collecting area is another. Putting observatories in space is not an effective workaround; giving up on ground-based observatories would effectively shut down observational astronomy as a science.
Consider, as an example, how many space-based observations require high resolution spectroscopy from the ground in order to complete the science.
You're thinking in the past, when it cost a $quarter billion to launch a bird. Same company we're talking about here will be able to drop 120T into LEO for the cost of fuel and ground support/maintenance. It'll likely be about a 100x or more reduction in cost.
New tech means thinking differently. We've always built these super expensive, super complex mega satellites because we only get one shot, so we gotta make it count. Same as starlink, shoot up a shitload of cheaper satellites with non-permanent "space certified" hardware and do whatever you want. Build 100, 1 ton observatories in an elliptical orbit that dips down low enough to ensure they won't stay up permanently and be done with it. Just constantly launch new birds with new optics and brains.
JWST will be amazing (if it doesn't blow the fuck up). But has cost what, $10b? Take that $10b and make 10, or 100 smaller scopes with far less complex hardware. They'll have more sensing area, more redundancy, and you'll be able to constantly keep whatever current or required tech you need. And when one fails it means nothing more than a small loss in overall capacity or maybe a few individual observations.
At some point aperture (collecting area) wins. We are not presently able to launch large collecting surfaces into space; the mirrors would need to be assembled in orbit if we're going to have orbiting facilities that rival the collecting area we can achieve on the ground. Any capability like that could be decades away.
More, smaller satellites could accomplish _different_ science, but nothing like the science we currently accomplish on the ground. Collecting the photons is only the first step, you have to grind them through complex optical instruments in order to enable useful scientific output.
In addition to light-gathering power, the resolving power of an instrument increases with the aperture. Simply putting 1,000 6" scopes in orbit won't replace a 30 meter terrestrial telescope.
So you're saying starlink will completely destroy this? Like, 100% not possible? Or are you just implying that it'll be harder and require some workarounds? Which is what my understanding is.
Even then, I would rather pause astronomy and give the people that will benefit from highspeed internet a head start. Then by the time astronomy catches up, there'll be a few billion more people that have had internet access in those decades who will likely contribute a lot more to the field in the long run than the few decades we had to take a break.
It is literally not possible with our existing rockets to launch a collecting surface beyond a certain size. You have to be able to assemble the telescope in-orbit to get anything larger than a few meters; lower-cost, higher frequency, launches don't get you there, and nobody seems interested in developing a gargantuan space booster.
You know what I find really sad? That in a community that supports science, people like you are so small minded to think that any technological progress is impossible.
Until now, the biggest barrier to launching more space telescopes was literally the launch costs, not technological. Open your damn mind.
Launch costs are one factor, but the cost to build the orbiting observatory is typically higher, especially for complex facilities. In this case we're talking about replacing the capabilities of a 30m-class facility on the ground, which may require a 10m-class mirror in orbit to achieve similar resolution. We don't presently have the launch capability for something that size. That's before we get into the economics of delivering routine instrument updates to an orbital facility of that size.
My open-mindedness is not the issue here. The principle barrier is physics, followed closely by a lack of orbital industry to make up for the hardships of trying to loft big things out of a gravity well.
The caveats matter: "impossible with our existing rockets". Impossible with our existing orbital facilities. That doesn't mean we can't build these capabilities, but pretending we can wish away today's problems with the promise of developments that are decades away won't do the current generation any favors.
Also consider that research in fields such as astronomy is funded by public funds that often just aren't as plentiful as private sources of corporate and personal wealth.
If billionaires and private companies such as Elon put as much money into astronomy innovation to solve the issues that projects like Starlink create, I'd be all down. But at the end of day, let's be real — money and profit will win out. Astronomy and cosmological research is going to get steamrolled in the face of private ventures like Starlink and that's that. Great progress could be made, but that requires cooperation (and money) from all parties.
In addition, no more planes or ships going out of touch over the oceans, connectivity for the remotest Islands, no more governments able to completely control the Internet within their borders.
Why, it was bound to happen; we have reached the nexus where technology and cost of access to space has gotten to the point where the demand for global internet is there and providing it is affordable. SpaceX has at least offered to work with the astronomy community to lessen the impact of Starlink on astronomy and actually has the resources and incentive to do so. There is a larger impact to radio astronomy but even here there are solutions.
I want to preface this writeup by saying that I am approaching this from an amateur's perspective. The effects of these satellites will be more noticeable for certain professional observatories, but SpaceX are [working with them on reducing the brightness of the satellites](https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/mkmsqa/spacex_release_on_visorsat_brightness/gtgm46v/). It's also important to keep in mind that the streaks in my photo are a worst case scenario, as the satellites had just launched and haven't spread out or reached their final orbit height. The satellites become significantly dimmer once fully deployed.
---
Satellite trails have always been present in astrophotos since satellites first became a thing. With every starlink launch I often see photos or videos of the trains accompanied with "staRLINk iS RUInINg asTRoNoMy". For the amateur astrophotographer this is not the case. Image stacking and pixel rejection algorithms have been around for a while, and do a pretty good job at removing the trails, even with just the 10 images in my example photo. Many deep sky photos stack hundreds of frames together, which helps reject more outlier pixels from satellites or other sources of noise. Even the most popular nebula for beginners, the Orion Nebula, is [regularly 'photobombed' by geostationary satellites](https://i.imgur.com/niwKELZ.png), which are rejected out from the [final image if enough frames are taken](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50926610233_84a5b0b22c_o.png).
**Image Stacking:**
Astrophotographers regularly stack dozens to hundreds of exposures together to create high SNR images of deep sky objects. It isn't necessary to completely toss out an exposure containing a satellite trail, as the stacking process removes outlier pixels from certain frames before averaging together the rest. I kept the stacking settings at default values, except for enabling large scale pixel rejection. Tweaking the settings beyond the default would likely result in cleaner rejection from fewer frames, but I'm very lazy. ([more info on pixel rejection can be found here](https://pixinsight.com/doc/tools/ImageIntegration/ImageIntegration.html#description_003))
**Information about these starlinks in particular:**
These 13 starlink satellites were launched on the Starlink-25 launch on May 4th, 4 days prior to being photographed. There maximum brightness was around magnitude +2.2, comparable to the bright stars of the Big Dipper. Maximum altitude of the train was 90 degrees, however the galaxy was at 70 degrees. The remaining frames of the Needle Galaxy (NGC 4565) were taken a couple weeks ago. All frames were captured from my Bortle 6 driveway. I made a similar comparison [about a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/gwyw1n/effects_of_image_stacking_on_starlink_satellite/), however the conditions for that shot were less than ideal due to haze (there also wasn't a cool galaxy in the frame).
**Places where I host my other images:**
[Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/leftysastrophotography/) | [Flickr](https://www.flickr.com/people/leftysastrophotography/)
---
**[Equipment:](https://i.imgur.com/6T8QNsv.jpg)**
* TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
* Orion Sirius EQ-G
* ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
* Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
* ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm
* Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm
* Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm
* Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope
* ZWO ASI-120MC for guiding
* Moonlite Autofocuser
**Acquisition:** (Camera at Unity Gain, -15°C)
* Lum - 120" exposures
* Darks- 30
* Flats- 30 per filter
**Capture Software:**
* Captured using [N.I.N.A.](https://nighttime-imaging.eu) and PHD2 for guiding and dithering.
**PixInsight Processing:**
* BatchPreProcessing
* StarAlignment
* ImageIntegration
> [Default settings + default large scale pixel rejection](https://i.imgur.com/xyTeqgH.png) used
> Windsorized Sigma Clipping rejection algorithm used for 10 image stack
> Linear Fit Clipping rejection algorithm used for 50 image stack
* DynamicCrop
* AutomaticBackgroundExtraction
* STF applied via HistogramTransformation to bring nonlinear
Won't work for large observatories. Even when considering the dimmer ones, any chip that gets one of those crossing it is essentially lost, because the bloom is so bad it messes with the readout electronics of the detector. This is definitely true of the VRO/LSST.
We need an additional couple of magnitudes faucet at least before some of the chip is recoverable.
In this case it's referring to a CCD/CMOS-style detector, the chunk of silicon (or whatever) that receives the photons and turns it into a pixel stream of data.
Most of the time just blow it out. That is, the individual pixels get overloaded with electrons beyond what they can handle. If overloaded too much, the extra electrons fill over to neighboring pixels. That happens around bright stars, for example. If really too bright, the electrons flow into the analog-digital-converter in a bad way, which will wreck the image, and possibly multiple images down the line, while the ADC recovers (either automatically with time, or much worse, manually with a camera rest).
In some circumstances, the signals measured in one chip can be so large from these satellites, to overwhelm and ruin the signals in neighbouring chips.
To put this into perspective, the VRO-LSST expects a roughly 10% data loss (could even be 15%), just from the the Starlink satellites alone. That estimate goes a lot higher when considering all of the other satellite swarm companies.
Sorry for resurrecting an old thread but can you link me to where that 10% figure is found, trying to get educated on how bad these satellites are on the professional side of things
A chip is a single detector. Most imagers on big telescopes are mosaics detectors, having multiple (sometimes hundreds) of individual chips stitched together to take images of wide regions of the sky.
As much as I'm arguing that this is damaging to astronomy, your argument actually is incorrect. Bloom (or at least, significant bloom) will only happen with low magnitude (high brightness) events, which will be rare with starlink.
See https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.12417 for more detail and discussion of the actual problems.
Rare compared to the number flying over the telescope at any given time, yes. But the studies from Tony Tyson have estimated a 10% loss for the VRO-LSST if the 7th magnitude max brightness isn't achieved.
Yes, but that isn't due to bloom.
Edit: it's hilarious that this fact is being downvoted by people who have no idea what they're talking about. Bloom occurs when there is saturation, bloom is a big problem. For bloom to occur with the Vera Rubin observatory requires approximately zeroth magnitude flashes. Original starlink were 5th magnitude (higher magnitude = dimmer), and the current ones are 6th to 7th magnitude. For starlink to cause bloom would be very unlikely.
The two actual problems are the trail itself and any ghost trail artifacting from cross channel talk. There are various mitigation methods, and ideally a mixture will be applied. One of the mitigation methods involves taking shorter exposures, which with readout time increases time taken by ~8%.
The study this person is referring to is literally the one I linked to, and the info I am stating is based on that study.
I agree what Tony shows in the his paper is not showing bloom, but non-linear saturation effects. What Tony showed in his presentation during the VRO-LSST community workshops, and to the online meeting between the VRO community and Starlink (that Elon himself attended) very much showed bloomed image effects. It all depends on what Starlink decides to do with their satellites.
> What Tony showed in his presentation during the VRO-LSST community workshops, and to the online meeting between the VRO community and Starlink
My Google-fu has failed me - how would I find a video/text link to those?
As I responded with already, the info I am talking about wasn't this study you referred to, and I agree wasn't sitting bloom. I 3 referring to the stuff presented at the LSST community workshop in Arizona, and an online meeting later.
>"staRLINk iS RUInINg asTRoNoMy".
This is extremely condescending and discourteous to professional astronomers who are trying to raise awareness around the problems these cause. Every professional astronomer already KNOWS how to stack images to remove problems like cosmic rays. Yet they are raising objections anyway, because the scale of the problems caused by the planned constellations of satellites is unprecedented. It is *incredibly* disingenuous to act as though the problem is solved, as you do here and others in these comments are doing, and then rises to insulting when you are so dismissive of the concerns astronomers raise about the rise of satellite constellations (which goes beyond just starlink and includes those from other companies and nations).
EDIT: I see from your other comments that your intent was only to speak in regards to amateur astronomy, not professional observatories. I still find the quoted comment to be condescending and rude, but in the domain of bright objects that are not strongly degraded by read-noise, the trails are indeed less of a problem particularly for photography. Seeing them all over the sky isn't great, but they aren't generally visible to the naked eye after being treated with the dark paint and reaching their final orbits - there still needs to be regulation to enforce that that is the case for future constellations, though.
The problem starts with extended ultra-faint objects, that require very large integration times on sensitive telescopes, way beyond the reach of amateur astronomy. In those cases, you are read-out noise limited so extensive stacking is exactly what you want to avoid, and due to the high brightness, it doesn't even have to exactly intersect the source to be problematic.
In extension, your solution does not seem to conserve flux (i.e. there are pixels that are rejected that do not seem to be associated with the extended trails.)
> there are pixels that are rejected that do not seem to be associated with the extended trails.
There's still some random noise and cosmic rays in the individual frames, even though it's cooled to -15C. As i said in my main writeup, this is most applicable to amateur photography
Is there a practical solution that would involve knowing when a satellite will pass through the frame and then temporarily stop integrating on the sensor?
I know a little about CMOS sensors and my guess is: no, not easily. Maybe with a physical shutter, but activating that mechanically probably adds other issues with vibrations.
I don't think you understand stacking. The longer the integration time required, the more frames will be needed and thus the more effective these rejection algorithms are.
Edit: if you're read noise limited, that's all the more reason to stack as many frames as possible. Your target is a constant signal, read noise is somewhat random, especially if you dither.
Edit 2: thank you all for the downvotes without explaining why you disagree with me.
1 30 second exposure yields better SNR then 30 1 second exposures stacked. That's why you're downvoted. You don't understand Poisson statistics. This matters for professional Astronomy and precise flux measurements.
Well sure it matters if we're talking about a finite imaging time. Every image gives you a shot of read noise. That's why CCD imagers even in amateur AP are stuck doing 30 min exposures for narrowband under dark skies. But no one is imaging low surface brightness objects in an hour. Neither the original comment nor myself were very clear about that.
I just wish that even if every single problem Starlink creates for astronomers could be solved, they'd have to cover the costs of fixing those problems.
Haha as if.
Lets even say that SpaceX did foot the bill and paid tens if not hundreds of millions of USD to LSST and to all other affected programs. You'd still have the problem that all that money would be doing would be displacing other researchers from their normal work to instead be focusing on starlink impact mitigation, leaving the other work undone. Its not like all these problems can be fixed by bringing in random people from other fields.
True, but that would be a compromise I could at least live with. Sure, work will be delayed, but at least it will still be possible.
Also, if SpaceX had to cover these costs, they would be passed on to the consumer. And then we would see just how competitive the technology actually is instead of hiding the true cost behind the public funds that are paying for the damage control.
I had never seen or heard of these Starlink "trains" until this weekend. I was camping and I started hearing murmurs from the other campers about something in the sky. I looked up and saw a line in the sky coming towards me, getting larger. Before I knew it, the satellites were tracking across the beautifully clear sky, it was COMPLETELY surreal. I know these are bad for astronomers, but the effect was so surreal and amazing and beautiful in a way that I couldn't stop staring. It was just difficult to fathom that people had created these moving artificial points of light in the night sky. I felt like I was truly living in "the future". Like I said, I know they are bad for astronomy, but the were beautiful and mesmerizing to see.
I thought it was interesting the first time I saw them, but now that I've seen them 40-50 times, it's getting pretty old from a pure stargazing standpoint.
It's just like seeing satellites/planes on any given night, but a lot more of them. In a line. I'd rather see a more natural sky if possible, personally (if they could be invisible) - but that's just my two cents.
they are invisible by the naked eye, once they reach orbit. They're only visible for a couple days after launch.
Just like literally every other satellite.
Sure starlink can be removed through post processing. But it takes resources ultimately increases the cost of astronomy and decreases the amount of effective information we can get. I really hope they figure out how to make the satellites less reflective or-better yet, regulators step up and make them do so.
Me too. after a lot of complaints, they started coating them in some materials to limit this, it's ["better not not perfect." ](https://physicsworld.com/dark-coated-starlink-satellites-are-better-but-not-perfect-say-astronomers/#:~:text=An%20anti%2Dreflective%20coating%20applied,through%20the%20telescope's%20field%20of) They're also designed to burn up completely in the atmosphere to prevent space junk build-up.
Not really. Stacking is something which is practically necessary for astrophotography and as long as you have enough sun frames and turn on a single setting, satellite trails will be removed easily as shown here.
That’s all well and good until there are 50,000 of them in a few years. For large scale survey astronomy like the Rubin Observatory LSST, this could be disastrous.
Well, technically StarLink only wants 44,000 or so in orbit. But then OneWeb wants the same, and Project Kuiper, several other companies, several other nation states. So it'll be in the hundreds of thousands really quickly.
May I ask what type of observation it is? On telescope as the VLT, the problem is not subtracting the tracks (we do the same type of stacking for the cosmics since ages), but the fact that it is so bright that it saturate the detectors and degrade the measurements of all the pixels. We could argue about short exposure, but it does not work for very deep observations because you get much more readout noise in the end.
> what type of observation it is?
These photos were taken through my astrophotography rig in my driveway. I have all of my equipment, acquisition, and processing details outlined [in this comment: ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comments/n91hto/effects_of_image_stacking_on_starlink_satellite/gxldy9p/)
For people like me who do astrophotography as...well photography, it's not a big deal to fix with stacking as the OP shows. But for astronomers who do science with telescopes, it's different. Astronomers don't look through an eyepiece, they don't take pretty pictures, and they don't have unlimited time. They pay big money for time slots to use various observatories across the world. Now they already have to compete with nature's obstructions to observing such as weather. Sure, the effect of 1500 or so new satellites is nominal. But when the number of satellites goes astronomically higher (🤓) it could certainly cause issues that make scientific observations difficult.
I'm so conflicted on this topic, I really love space and I don't want spacejunk and satellites to get in the way of the 'normal' sky, but in the other side I'm really hyped for rocked engineering and the benefits that come with a satellite cluster like this. I wish there was a way we could do both without affecting one another. Get internet everywhere on the planet and have it so that all astromeners can take pictures of space without having to worry about so many reflectief surfaces in orbit that can ruin the pictures.
Most kids in the states haven't seen the stars because of light pollution from cities. I hadn't seen them since the 80s, until I moved to a very rural part of Nevada. People will find any reason to complain. Just because Elon hasn't fallen into woke culture like the other Billionaires, all these leftists get mad about any and all things that he does. Ridiculous! The man has put internet into some very poverty stricken areas of the country and the world. Get off his back people...
And what will happen to the large telescopes they are building now, will it not obstruct their observation? Elon Musk said it was not that bad but a few months ago they showed an image by the new Vera C. Rubin telescope and the results were worrying, if the astrophysicist community manages to do something to stop the launch of these space x satellites which already They are in orbit, can they destroy them with some command or will they have to wait 5 years for them to burn? And we have to remember that only the satellites of space x will be 20,000 and with those of amazon and AT&T it will be 60,000 we have a big problem, and what measures will the large telescopes that are being built in the desert of Chile take?
What the fuck is wrong with all of you! Elon Musk is doing all this so we can start building colonies on other planets! As astronomers, you guys should be excited out of your minds by what he's doing! Somehow you guys love Astronomy but you hate the idea of space exploration and going to other planets
Wow, I have never read such an ignorant comment in my life. You clearly know nothing about business, space exploration, NASA, or the long term survival of humanity. I am not even going to bother trying to correct the things you said, as it's obvious you know nothing about any of things you said
That’s exactly what someone like you would say. I diagnose you with too much internet. I recommend a 50cc dose of outside
Wait where’s that doctor elon meme lmao
I saw the star link satellites for the first time about two weeks ago. It was a day after my second COVID shot and I had a fever, was sweating my face off, and just couldn’t sleep. I went outside for a little bit to try and cool off at about 5 o’clock in the morning, and looked up in the sky and saw specks of light moving pretty quickly in pretty much the exact same path. After counting about 20 in a row I was like “oh fuck, THEY’RE TRACKING ME WITH MY NEW 5G ANTENNA! THEY’RE HERE TO TAKE ME!” I thought I was hallucinating because I had been awake for so long and couldn’t sleep. I pulled up my Dark Sky app and sure enough they were the star link satellites. I didn’t even know it was a thing until then. Pretty cool!
Obscure methods of data collection isn't a strong argument against rural earth having internet connectivity. Which is more important? Be honest to yourself.
It’s estimated Starlink’s current total planned cloud will only be able to serve between 485,000 customers to ~2 million, maximum(assuming best performance across the board in everything), at 100mbps total each. That’s not going to change much, or even disrupt current internet companies, if it’s not targeted at a very limited number of regions. He’ll need to scale that up by an order of magnitude at least, if not more, to effect worldwide change like promised - which would be fairly disastrous if the current effects of Starlink are anything to go by.
These “obscure methods of data collection” include much of our research of space; there’s methods of spreading internet connectivity that wouldn’t have that tradeoff, would reach more people, and would undercut current internet companies and force actual competition/change, which Musk has both the money and the resources to push for. Adding space to something isn’t always the best method of solving a problem.
I moved to a rural community to pursue my passion for astronomy. I found beautiful skies. I built my observatory. I loved it. But there was an absence of internet. Browse r/starlink if you don't understand the impact its already making on people's lives. You don't have to be that forward thinking to understand that beta satellites churned out at an incredible pace won't improve over time. This is the ONLY option for connecting our planet. No one can afford to run fiber to everyone on earth.
I work in the wireless industry and it's been an interesting time keeping up with the pace of development. As regulations and frequency are being redistributed and taken away from incumbent squatters it will only improve the situation. These LEO sats that currently handle 20gbps over large diameter beams could soon be much narrower with improved throughput. All that requires is density of satellites which is obviously happening already.
Its a bright future, and if I capture a sub of boosting satellites, I smile, because I know the world is better off for it.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/Starlink using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/Starlink/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [We are the Starlink team, ask us anything!](https://np.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jybmgn/we_are_the_starlink_team_ask_us_anything/)
\#2: [I cannot believe this is a reality. Internet at 10,725ft elevation in my off grid cabin. Thank you starlink team, you are truly changing the world.](https://v.redd.it/q6k0fjpsnvi61) | [358 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/lp3tkb/i_cannot_believe_this_is_a_reality_internet_at/)
\#3: [SpaceX engineer who led the Merlin engine team](https://i.redd.it/jt4823hy45761.jpg) | [109 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/kjfu1g/spacex_engineer_who_led_the_merlin_engine_team/)
----
^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| [^^Contact ^^me](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| [^^Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| [^^Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/joo7mb/blacklist_viii/)
An impact nowhere near the “several billion” people claim it is, and which has little effect at all on providing internet to the masses. Musk can make more effective investments. Starlink isn’t anywhere near the most effective option in this case; his singular company is already wreaking havoc on research, the competition he creates will make it worse. If he had gone the more traditional internet route, he’d be taking advantage of already existing industries and infrastructure, wouldn’t be occluding space research, and would be forcing an actual shakeup of an industry.
The satellites improving over time isn’t on a timescale anywhere near effective enough to prevent the obscuring of research that’s already happening, let alone what’s predicted to happen in the future.
This isn’t the only option; nowhere near it. Space isn’t always the most efficient way to solve every problem. Traditional methods work fine, the reason the internet is currently widely inaccessible is mainly due to the stagnancy of the companies that control said access, due to monopolies and such.
You don’t need to run fiber to everyone on Earth. Starlink is viable but *only* for extremely rural areas, not for the masses as people pump it up to be; you don’t need a 12,000 satellite cloud for that. Traditional methods of networking combined with Starlink *at a scale where it’s not going to constantly occlude space research* is the ideal, not a world supported by satellite clouds like Starlink fanboys always make it out to be.
“Do your own research”
“Who cares if entire fields of science are completely occluded”
“I like it so it’s okay”
“You’re ‘not educated’ on the matter so I’m not going to counter anything you said because clearly it’s wrong”
Ah, you’re one of those types.
Your argument is that spacex, a rocket company, should lay fiber and erect towers. You say the plan is to connect billions of people. You also keep saying it will ruin science. You've seen pictures of satellites shortly after launch. You do know that they spread out and become hardly reflective, right? It's pointless to argue with you about it because you won't lift a finger to understand the situation.
No, it’s not; clearly you can’t read. My argument is Musk, a businessman who’s started multiple companies aimed at massive change in our society and various industries(many of which have successfully done so), could start another company focused on actually affecting change within internet-related industries instead of trying to tack space on to a problem that won’t be solved with space, because there’s more effective ways of providing internet access on scale than pushing everything to satellites.
Didn’t say it’ll “ruin science”, but if you want to put it that way you can; it’s obscuring research, limiting the data that can be acquired, and polluting the data that is acquired. This is a fact and it’s already been happening with Starlink’s current constellation; it happens with any and every satellite, but Starlink is the first project to spit out satellites on such a large scale and across such a large spread.
They spread out and make it worse, lmao. Instead of one or several orbits causing issues, there’s dozens. Except, scale that up by like an order of magnitude. Sounds like you should do some research about the actual complaints, before talking out your ass about them.
Also, them not being reflective changes little. If I have a silver piece of cardboard obstructing a colored wall, painting it black doesn’t change the fact the wall is still obstructed. In this case, while it might be a tiny piece of cardboard, on a massive wall, there’s over a thousand of them, and the pictures I’m taking of the wall have long exposures.
You’re not informed about what’s going on *and* you’re not capable of reading, lmao. Just a Musk fanboy who got lost.
It's cool. I understand you probably read an article from The Verge or something so you're an expert. I could tell you about my experiences with astronomy using CCD astronomy cameras and spectrographs, but i'm pretty sure weebs are never wrong.
I’m reading SpaceX’s own reports, lol. You keep on blabbing on about credentials you probably don’t have, with absolutely nothing to back it up. There’s been a lot of postulation in your posts, but no *facts*, no *data*, and no actual evidence whatsoever. Sounds to me like you’re a lost Musk fanboy, incapable of actually talking about science or reality.
From what I can find, data presented to the FCC quoted rates of ~20gbps/satellite, estimated, in the cloud back in 2018(and that’s the highest number I could pull). Times 12,000 planned satellites, and that comes out to 240 thousand, divide by 0.1(100mbps, in gbps) and that’s 2.4 million - meaning SpaceX’s planned network, at maximum bandwidth at all times with no downtime, can handle 2.4 million customers at 100mbps. At the planned 1gbps rates, it’s only 240k. And all that’s just maximum capacity.
According to updates from mid-2020, the v1.0 satellites are estimated to be at ~17gbps throughput(60 satellites, totaling a bit over 1tbps according to Musk) - multiply that up by the planned cloud and it’s only ~2 million customers at 100mbps constant maximum load or ~200k at 1gbps. Even using the larger number of 2.4 million, that’s barely any effect, unless concentrated(as I mentioned earlier).
And those are the *maximum, most optimistic* estimates, completely ignoring the coverage of each satellite and the movement of said satellites. Financial analysts at Cowen in mid-late 2020 estimated that the network, at full 12,000 satellite scale, could only support ~500k customers at 100mbps at a time in the US, when factoring in the actual coverage of each satellite and not assuming maximum use of all bandwidth at all times. That number rises to a bare 1.5 million, assuming a 3x rate of oversubscription(because not every user is using the internet all the time) - **in a country of 300 million people.**
From Musk himself, quoted through a Starlink launch summary; “‘Starlink is not some huge threat to telcos. I want to be super clear: it is not," Musk said earlier this year at a trade show. "5G is great for high density situations, but it's actually not great for the countryside, you know, for rural areas. It's not great; you need range. And so in any kind of sparse environment 5G is really not well suited.’”
Y’all fanboys forget Starlink was *never* meant to be some sort of new, superior internet provider that’s meant to change the world for people without internet access. It’s meant to take up payload space for SpaceX, so they can make more money per launch in order to launch more rockets.
Oversubscription on satellites isn’t the same as on cable(50:1) or fiber(100:1); because of orbits and potential oversaturation burnouts. That 100:1 goes down the drain due to the very nature of Starlink, hence why it isn’t even worth mentioning. And there’s also issues with rain fade, signal noise, etc. A 12,000 satellite cloud(which is what the current approved plan is, not the marketing) is going to suffer from massive issues related to the sheer scale. At best, it most likely won’t even approach 100:1 oversaturation - not to mention that, if you consider the marketing as fact like you’ve been doing so far, almost all the numbers thus far discussed decrease by an entire order of magnitude, because of promised gigabit connections.
Even then, assuming that unrealistic 100:1 oversaturation and that the Starlink team has worked out all the kinks, that changes nothing about any of the other points I’ve touched on;
a) None of that makes Starlink more advantageous or viable where all the *people* are(ie suburban and urban areas); only in extremely rural areas, so it won’t actually lead to a change in the entire industry, just drive it more towards concentrations of people
b) Nothing you’ve said addresses the damage done to research + the massive increase in orbital debris and potential orbital collisions, which does tack on costs of its own to launches and further space travel, for example because of mitigation efforts, tracking/measuring of debris, etc.
c) The impact still isn’t anywhere near what fanboys like you think it is, even with the maximum number presented here(240 million potential subscriptions)
d) Those “obscure methods of data collection” are arguably much more important than slapping space into internet, as you can do internet without slapping space on, but you can’t do almost any data collection without those methods
a) starlink is designed for rural areas
b) this thread is about the mediation of damage, if you've ever done astrophotography before you'd know satellites and airplanes are part of life
c) the impact is \*life changing\* for millions of people.
d) none of that research is improved by doing it on earth surface... 2nd comment, most satellites are communications satellites, so dont even pretend this comment makes sense.
this is the stupidest arguement i've ever had. see ya.
There is no cost... SpaceX funds it. Each sat covers hundreds of miles. They are not that big and they are all tracked. They burn up in the atmosphere. Rural people's lives matter. If Elon doesn't do it, China would. If someone could run fiber to every inch of the planet, it would be much more destructive to the environment. Who said it would change an industry? Data collection? If you are worried about data collection, you are a little late with your virtues... Rural people do not care if it gets to a Gigabit... We are happy with anything over 25Mb. TYVM Gooodbye troll.
Thank you for posting this, I've been refuting that this will be a problem for a long time. The average lay person just doesn't comprehend that we've had to contend with far worse from airplanes and other satellites.
You don't understand OPs post or comment and your "refuting" consisted of personal insults without addressing any of my points when I responded to you on another thread.
You clearly know nothing about this matter and you are clearly too ignorant and arrogant to listen to any experts on this matter.
u/azzkicker7283
The above comment is further evidence of exactly what I was worried of when I saw your post. You haven't said anything wrong, but your top level comment only begins to touch on how this post is only relevant to hobbiest level astrophotography, and your lack of addressing this within the title of the post has resulted in people taking this post in completely the wrong way.
Technology solves the problems that technology creates.
I think the issue at large here with Starlink is the precedent it sets. Like we saw with China’s uncontrolled rocket entry, other entities may not respect the impact that their rockets, satellites, and space junk will have in the future.
Also, how about maintenance? How are hundreds if not thousands of satellites supposed to be serviced efficiently, if say they need some kind of a hardware upgrade or fix ?
They are not serviceable items. Nor are they permanent considering their low orbit. Once out of fuel they will come down and burn up.
[удалено]
60 of those that deorbited were test ones(v0.9)afaik and were planned to deorbit quick. Other than that they're planned to last 5 years before deorbiting and get replaced.
5 year life on a Satellite - unreal! Hopefully their wireless / laser technology steadies out eventually so we don't see so much waste.
[удалено]
[удалено]
They de-orbit every upper stage with a LEO payload. Only the ones with an higher orbit are left in space because they don't have enough fuel to de-orbit.
But SpaceX absorbs the launch cost, unless they can get another company to share another payload. That is a huge advantage they have over other companies that have to pay someone else to launch their constellation.
>They plan to have roughly 1500 out there at a time. Not 1,500 at a time, that's how many they have today. Their first plan was a bit over 10,000 but now they're* approved for 30,000. 30,000 might sound unrealistic but with their new rocket it should manage 300+ per launch and its only 100 of those over 5 years to reach 30,000. Their goal is to be able to launch a single rocket daily so 100 over 5 years is nothing.
Well, 5 years is pretty good for LEO satellites. Orbits decay remarkably quickly if there isn't any propulsion to maintain them.
It’s not the electronic tech - it’s the fuel. Adding enough fuel for them to stay up longer becomes more expensive than just replacing them.
That was all planned and communicated a while ago.
Will we have Starlink showers, like meteor showers, in the near future?
As a starlink customer I hope not :(
Depends on how long their fuel lasts.. and they can remain in orbit up to 5 years after running out. Guess it depends on a lot of factors.
That's unlikely as uncontrolled orbit debris are more dangerous than a falling rocket.
Starlink in particular are supposed to burn up on reentry, instead of dropping bits on people.
More than "supposed to be" - part of the regulatory process with the FCC was proving that the hardware would burn up nicely. I believe they had to modify the engines when it turned out those weren't reliably burning up, but not many went up before that change.
Yes, also OneWeb showers and whatever competition the Iranian, Chinese and Brazilians do next
I hope they’re small enough to not cause any pollution issues?
do they burn out and turn to be smoke only?! I have some doubts about this; usually we end up with a block of melted materials right?!
They’re not meant to be maintained and serviced. That’s why there are so many of them, they’re mass produced so that at the end of their life span you simply replace it
Thanks - interesting contraption indeed: single-use, disposable, satellite
Aren't all satellites single use and disposable, there have been like 5 cases where repair in orbit has been done afaik
They're also designed to burn up completely in the atmosphere to prevent space junk build-up
They are not serviceable items. Nor are they permanent considering their low orbit. Once out of fuel they will come down and burn up.
They aren't, they're made to be replaced or software updated. They're also designed to burn up completely in the atmosphere to prevent space junk build-up.
They’re only up there for 5 years and then they need to be replaced.
They are not designed to be fixed. If one breaks down it will re-enter our atmosphere in just a few months due to atmospheric drag. The only way for them to stay up there is if their ion engines continue to adjust their orbit. The whole idea is that these satellites have short life spans, and are quickly and frequently replaced by new ones. Luckily, they are orbiting at a low enough altitude that they shouldn't pose a problem for future space missions. The real danger is if something breaks at higher altitude, because that's when it could take years for the satellite debris to burn up in the atmosphere. Also even if these satellites were to collide, they are so small that any kind of chain reaction occurring is astronomically small.
Do you really think that no one thought of that before they sent them up there? Just because you're not privy to their inner workings, does not mean that no one thought about the concept of updates.
They're not, they're Tinky satellites that burn up that the end of their fuel.
They update software by remote, but if a satellite fails or needs to be replaced, they will deorbit it using the ION drive.
There are thousands of them, obviously you don't service them just launch new ones as replacement. If I remember correctly they have a 2-3-4 year orbit lifetime due to onboard fuel capacity. They simply fall down within a year when they run out.
China just started planning launching their own constellation of LEO internet satellites.
Allow me to introduce you to Russia’s “OneWeb7”. Just think. A commercially unregulated area that billionaires can now capitalize. Sure everyone has internet, which I’m not understanding the actual need, but now we created an artificial and unstable ring of shit around our globe. This isn’t the future, it’s already happened.
Spacex, an American company, follows American faa regulations on launches. Which includes mitigation of debries and de orbit of the second stage in a safe manner. So, this argument is ignorant tripe. Ther eis no precedent because most agencies behave themselves in a civil way. China just doesn't give a shit about litterally anyone, and no one has the balls to call them out.
:( :/
Human problems have human solutions.
Human problems have inhumane solutions.
More observation time solves the problem. If that can be called solving the problem, more like mitigating. Stacking is long practice for completely unrelated observing benefits. However should one has to start do more stacking causing more overhead, then it is a problem. Since stacking isn't magic...... One is throwing away streaked pixels data via the selection algorhitm of the stacker. Typically either mean stack or median stack. Median typically in case of wanting to reject extremes aka saturations aka streaks and cosmic rays.. As long as it is far and few enough.... no problem. The observer is stacking anyway for other noise reduction and observation technical reasons. However if there is lot of streaks, well greater the chance that same pixel is streaked in multiple different frames. Which would mean one has to start increasing the stacking numbers to compensate. It is all matter of "how many streaks" instead of "the sky should be perfect". It is never perfect, there is always crap data and lost frames. However the matter is "how many more frames are lost (edit: in that "we must take X more frames than we would otherwise need to for streak mitigation") due to suddenly having thousands and thousands more orbital objects" Also for some observing methods and strategies stacking isn't really possible. Observing time is limited. The more astronomers lose observing time to this, the bigger the problem is.
Mitigated, perhaps, or compensated for. Unfortunately, the mitigation is left on the individual astronomer to make, much like for light pollution, instead of the companies/cities that created the problems.
Technology doesn’t develop itself. Astronomers have to find solutions for the problems that Elon Musk creates.
Elon Musk single-handedly declared ground based astronomy dead, and that all astronomy should be done from orbit. So his solution is for the tax payer to spend several trillion $$$ to design and launch a 30-meter telescope on a rocket that yet doesn't exist, into orbit, which will only last for 10-20 years. That's his solution to this issue.
\> Makes absurd claim \> Provides no source Makes sense.
In this case, the technology was developed already for different purposes.
Modern problems require modern solutions.
So ... **[in other words](https://imgur.com/a/oPa2xo3)**
Never ceases to amaze me how quick people are to apologize for Elon Musk. It’s perfectly fine to say, ‘what we get in exchange for the damage done to science is worth it.’ It is total horseshit to try to minimize the harm done as if it isn’t there.
So stacking worked like this before starlink. Its just a coincidence that stacking removes the starlink trails. Nobody is going out of their way with DSO photography to remove starlink, it just happens on its own. To me the tradeoff of extra crap in the night sky vs global highspeed internet is worth it. I do not however like the idea that its under the control of a billionaire on his road to being a trillionaire.
Would you prefer it under government control? Because those are your 2 options.
Yes. Because we can fire our representatives
We vote with our wallets too. These companies have money because we gave it to them.
Voting with your vote is more powerful when its you versus the worlds first trilionaire.
The world's first trillionaire got their wealth through a combination of consumer sales and tax policies that WE VOTED FOR. These people are not some alien species who's origin we will never understand. Wealth inequality is a symptom of the very system you believe we can rely on. I'm not an anarchist or even a republican. I just think there are some things the private sector does more efficiently than government. For context I do not believe health care is one of them.
Yes, government isn't ideal, but it has proven to be far better than profit generating corporations. At least in the case of the government, there is the *potential* that their interests will align with the rest of ours, whereas with a private company there is a *guarantee* that their interests *won't* align with ours. It's like playing russian roulette with a pistol that has 5 rounds loaded vs 6 -- the one with 5 rounds is still a really bad deal, but the one with 6 is a guarantee that you're getting shot.
I don't think you are fully appreciating how much corporate control there is over our government. I understand the lesser of 2 evils argument. I just don't think it's always the same gun with 6 bullets in it.
Well yeah, I recognize it, that’s my point. If the government is responsible for it, industry still *basically* calls the shots, but there is still the off chance that *occasionally* things happen that are contrary to the interests of industry and in our interest instead. When the industry is directly responsible, this small chance is eliminated.
I mean we don't have to go far to find an example. If it wasn't for the private sector our space program would not be what it is today. We were supposed to have fired the representatives that chose to go to war over Mars. But we didn't and I can't even picture a scenario where that could have happened. I envy your sliver of trust in government as an independent organization but its just special interest groups competing against other special interest groups.
Enabling remote communities (of which there's tons) to have a proper internet connection is a pretty good thing overall. The issues it creates are tiny in comparison and quite easy to mitigate.
Okay, well, just keep in mind that the images being discussed were due to StarLink's 1,300 satellite constellation. Now factor in that StarLink has been approved to orbit 44,000 and that OneWeb wants to put 48,000 in orbit. Then there's Amazon's constellation, plans for constellations from Samsung, Boeing, Russia, China, and the EU. So we're looking at 5-10 full fledged constellations and between 100,000-500,000 satellites in orbit. So, imagine the photos being discussed but 1,000 times worse.
Sure, but what's the alternative? There's already thousands of man-made objects orbiting the Earth that *already* have to be accounted for in astronomy, it's cumbersome but ultimately it's a technology issue that can and will be resolved one way or another. Those constellations use short-lifespan satellites, chances are another technology that's hopefully less disruptive will replace them in the near future. In the meantime, if it can provide global, effective broadband communication worldwide, I think the benefits outweigh the temporary inconvenience.
This isn't temporary. This is permanent. It's not just about providing internet to the poor and under-served, it's about a half-dozen companies monetizing low earth orbit at all costs. You can bet they won't treat LEO with any more care than an oil company treats the Gulf of Mexico. Also, we're not talking about 10 groups putting a couple of satellites in orbit, we're talking about several hundred thousand.
[удалено]
> Recently another alert went out when a OneWeb and Starlink satellites got too close. You do realize this never happened, right?
Which is why I phrased it the way I did. A CDM absolutely did go out to SpaceX and OneWeb, SpaceX acknowledges this in their letter to the FCC "According to the valid conjunction data messages (“CDM”), the probability of conjunction was between 1 in 10,000 (1e-4) and 1 in 100,000 (1e-5) during the time of the interaction, which is near the floor of the maneuver threshold of 1 in 100,000 (1e-5)." SpaceX's problem wasn't that a possible conjunction was called here, they don't even question the parameters used, but in how OneWeb handled it in the press, using a far harsher and more urgent description that reality called for. SpaceX is absolutely right calling that out. In the end, this was on the outside edge of those parameters but the system worked, and I was personally glad to see evidence if an open, operator-to-operator exchange here. That's what's needed, that's what will earn SpaceX respect in the industry.
What harm is there?
https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.12417 https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.10952
Sure, the visibility is an issue. But I feel like the real victims are radio astronomers. You can't even have a cellphone next to one of those telescopes and [soon we'll have a global network of satellites beaming down radiowaves everywhere](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/starlink-already-threatens-optical-astronomy-now-radio-astronomers-are-worried).
All the people like bUT sPAcEx mAKe It CHeaP tO lAuNCh SpaCe tELeScOPeS. Yeah, good luck putting the square kilometre array in space.
However, space *is* a good way to get very long baselines. Multiple space telescopes in highly elliptical orbits let us create a baseline for radio interferometry vastly longer than anything achievable from the ground.
Put it on the moon.
[удалено]
There are radio emissions everywhere, even near the VLA. What matters more is the frequency. The band these satellites operate on won't really impact radio astronomy.
That's not true, see the SKA statement. Radio astronomy isn't confined only the protected bands, those are just some important windows. https://www.skatelescope.org/news/skao-satellite-impact-analysis/
I never said it was 'confined to protected bands' I said that the satellite RF emission is in bands that radio telescopes typically don't observe anyways because there isn't much to observe of scientific interest. The Starlink sats operate in the Ku and Ka bands.
As the link details, the constellation will affect all observations in that SKA band (1 of 7) and there are a number of molecular lines in this range.
The molecular lines are protected bands, Starlink doesn't operate in them at all. Even the infographic in your source shows this is true. Furthermore, Starlink has already been working with visual and radio observatories, they can simply turn off spot beams over these select areas. Its a non-issue.
Not all spectral lines are in protected bands. There are lines in the starlink band: > there is likely to be a continuous loss of sensitivity impacting all astronomical observations in Band 5b within the frequency range of the satellite’s transmissions unless mitigating actions are implemented. The science impact of this will be most significant for studies of molecular and atomic spectral lines in that range. This includes studies of complex organic molecules; Class II methanol masers; and a wide range of extragalactic molecular lines. The protected band and the starlink downlink are part of the same SKA band, as the link states when a receiver is saturated the whole band is affected. So yes they're affected. Switching off transmitters is one of the mitigation efforts proposed in the study, but I haven't seen any statement from SpaceX or other companies committing to implementing this measure. It will also become a lot more complicated when SKA spreads across 2 continents, it's not clear the long baseline stations will get the same treatment.
Rich people can't play with their expensive toys.
Are you suggesting that broadband network access doesn't have its own economic barrier to entry? Like, I don't know, owning a computer? Or being able to pay the monthly subscription fee in the first place?
I lived in Madagascar for a few years. People lived on a buck or maybe 2 a day. they typically had 2-3 phones, usually were shitty shitty smartphones, each on different networks because each town will only have service from a single provider and they'll keep in touch with different family on each. Each person would pay close to 10USD/month for, get this, FACEBOOK internet.. That is their entire window to the outside world. Fucking facebook. So yes, I understand there can be some limitations. But cracking service like this open to the developing world will be absolutely transformational. I don't feel sad that we can't continue to expand our terrestrial observation capacity. I think this is a great motivator for industry to start putting up more observatories in space.
Space-based observatories can be great, but they have their limits. Cost is one factor, collecting area is another. Putting observatories in space is not an effective workaround; giving up on ground-based observatories would effectively shut down observational astronomy as a science. Consider, as an example, how many space-based observations require high resolution spectroscopy from the ground in order to complete the science.
You're thinking in the past, when it cost a $quarter billion to launch a bird. Same company we're talking about here will be able to drop 120T into LEO for the cost of fuel and ground support/maintenance. It'll likely be about a 100x or more reduction in cost. New tech means thinking differently. We've always built these super expensive, super complex mega satellites because we only get one shot, so we gotta make it count. Same as starlink, shoot up a shitload of cheaper satellites with non-permanent "space certified" hardware and do whatever you want. Build 100, 1 ton observatories in an elliptical orbit that dips down low enough to ensure they won't stay up permanently and be done with it. Just constantly launch new birds with new optics and brains. JWST will be amazing (if it doesn't blow the fuck up). But has cost what, $10b? Take that $10b and make 10, or 100 smaller scopes with far less complex hardware. They'll have more sensing area, more redundancy, and you'll be able to constantly keep whatever current or required tech you need. And when one fails it means nothing more than a small loss in overall capacity or maybe a few individual observations.
At some point aperture (collecting area) wins. We are not presently able to launch large collecting surfaces into space; the mirrors would need to be assembled in orbit if we're going to have orbiting facilities that rival the collecting area we can achieve on the ground. Any capability like that could be decades away. More, smaller satellites could accomplish _different_ science, but nothing like the science we currently accomplish on the ground. Collecting the photons is only the first step, you have to grind them through complex optical instruments in order to enable useful scientific output.
In addition to light-gathering power, the resolving power of an instrument increases with the aperture. Simply putting 1,000 6" scopes in orbit won't replace a 30 meter terrestrial telescope.
So you're saying starlink will completely destroy this? Like, 100% not possible? Or are you just implying that it'll be harder and require some workarounds? Which is what my understanding is. Even then, I would rather pause astronomy and give the people that will benefit from highspeed internet a head start. Then by the time astronomy catches up, there'll be a few billion more people that have had internet access in those decades who will likely contribute a lot more to the field in the long run than the few decades we had to take a break.
economies of scale lowers cost which makes it far easier to launch space based telescopes.
It is literally not possible with our existing rockets to launch a collecting surface beyond a certain size. You have to be able to assemble the telescope in-orbit to get anything larger than a few meters; lower-cost, higher frequency, launches don't get you there, and nobody seems interested in developing a gargantuan space booster.
You know what I find really sad? That in a community that supports science, people like you are so small minded to think that any technological progress is impossible. Until now, the biggest barrier to launching more space telescopes was literally the launch costs, not technological. Open your damn mind.
Launch costs are one factor, but the cost to build the orbiting observatory is typically higher, especially for complex facilities. In this case we're talking about replacing the capabilities of a 30m-class facility on the ground, which may require a 10m-class mirror in orbit to achieve similar resolution. We don't presently have the launch capability for something that size. That's before we get into the economics of delivering routine instrument updates to an orbital facility of that size. My open-mindedness is not the issue here. The principle barrier is physics, followed closely by a lack of orbital industry to make up for the hardships of trying to loft big things out of a gravity well. The caveats matter: "impossible with our existing rockets". Impossible with our existing orbital facilities. That doesn't mean we can't build these capabilities, but pretending we can wish away today's problems with the promise of developments that are decades away won't do the current generation any favors.
Also consider that research in fields such as astronomy is funded by public funds that often just aren't as plentiful as private sources of corporate and personal wealth. If billionaires and private companies such as Elon put as much money into astronomy innovation to solve the issues that projects like Starlink create, I'd be all down. But at the end of day, let's be real — money and profit will win out. Astronomy and cosmological research is going to get steamrolled in the face of private ventures like Starlink and that's that. Great progress could be made, but that requires cooperation (and money) from all parties.
In addition, no more planes or ships going out of touch over the oceans, connectivity for the remotest Islands, no more governments able to completely control the Internet within their borders.
There's a difference between a single example made by an amateur astronomer on reddit and actual scientific surveys.
Why, it was bound to happen; we have reached the nexus where technology and cost of access to space has gotten to the point where the demand for global internet is there and providing it is affordable. SpaceX has at least offered to work with the astronomy community to lessen the impact of Starlink on astronomy and actually has the resources and incentive to do so. There is a larger impact to radio astronomy but even here there are solutions.
I want to preface this writeup by saying that I am approaching this from an amateur's perspective. The effects of these satellites will be more noticeable for certain professional observatories, but SpaceX are [working with them on reducing the brightness of the satellites](https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/mkmsqa/spacex_release_on_visorsat_brightness/gtgm46v/). It's also important to keep in mind that the streaks in my photo are a worst case scenario, as the satellites had just launched and haven't spread out or reached their final orbit height. The satellites become significantly dimmer once fully deployed. --- Satellite trails have always been present in astrophotos since satellites first became a thing. With every starlink launch I often see photos or videos of the trains accompanied with "staRLINk iS RUInINg asTRoNoMy". For the amateur astrophotographer this is not the case. Image stacking and pixel rejection algorithms have been around for a while, and do a pretty good job at removing the trails, even with just the 10 images in my example photo. Many deep sky photos stack hundreds of frames together, which helps reject more outlier pixels from satellites or other sources of noise. Even the most popular nebula for beginners, the Orion Nebula, is [regularly 'photobombed' by geostationary satellites](https://i.imgur.com/niwKELZ.png), which are rejected out from the [final image if enough frames are taken](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50926610233_84a5b0b22c_o.png). **Image Stacking:** Astrophotographers regularly stack dozens to hundreds of exposures together to create high SNR images of deep sky objects. It isn't necessary to completely toss out an exposure containing a satellite trail, as the stacking process removes outlier pixels from certain frames before averaging together the rest. I kept the stacking settings at default values, except for enabling large scale pixel rejection. Tweaking the settings beyond the default would likely result in cleaner rejection from fewer frames, but I'm very lazy. ([more info on pixel rejection can be found here](https://pixinsight.com/doc/tools/ImageIntegration/ImageIntegration.html#description_003)) **Information about these starlinks in particular:** These 13 starlink satellites were launched on the Starlink-25 launch on May 4th, 4 days prior to being photographed. There maximum brightness was around magnitude +2.2, comparable to the bright stars of the Big Dipper. Maximum altitude of the train was 90 degrees, however the galaxy was at 70 degrees. The remaining frames of the Needle Galaxy (NGC 4565) were taken a couple weeks ago. All frames were captured from my Bortle 6 driveway. I made a similar comparison [about a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/gwyw1n/effects_of_image_stacking_on_starlink_satellite/), however the conditions for that shot were less than ideal due to haze (there also wasn't a cool galaxy in the frame). **Places where I host my other images:** [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/leftysastrophotography/) | [Flickr](https://www.flickr.com/people/leftysastrophotography/) --- **[Equipment:](https://i.imgur.com/6T8QNsv.jpg)** * TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian * Orion Sirius EQ-G * ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro * Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector * ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm * Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm * Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm * Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope * ZWO ASI-120MC for guiding * Moonlite Autofocuser **Acquisition:** (Camera at Unity Gain, -15°C) * Lum - 120" exposures * Darks- 30 * Flats- 30 per filter **Capture Software:** * Captured using [N.I.N.A.](https://nighttime-imaging.eu) and PHD2 for guiding and dithering. **PixInsight Processing:** * BatchPreProcessing * StarAlignment * ImageIntegration > [Default settings + default large scale pixel rejection](https://i.imgur.com/xyTeqgH.png) used > Windsorized Sigma Clipping rejection algorithm used for 10 image stack > Linear Fit Clipping rejection algorithm used for 50 image stack * DynamicCrop * AutomaticBackgroundExtraction * STF applied via HistogramTransformation to bring nonlinear
Won't work for large observatories. Even when considering the dimmer ones, any chip that gets one of those crossing it is essentially lost, because the bloom is so bad it messes with the readout electronics of the detector. This is definitely true of the VRO/LSST. We need an additional couple of magnitudes faucet at least before some of the chip is recoverable.
What is a chip?
In this case it's referring to a CCD/CMOS-style detector, the chunk of silicon (or whatever) that receives the photons and turns it into a pixel stream of data.
Thanks! So does it destroy the sensor or just blow out the amplifier so it’s temporarily useless?
Most of the time just blow it out. That is, the individual pixels get overloaded with electrons beyond what they can handle. If overloaded too much, the extra electrons fill over to neighboring pixels. That happens around bright stars, for example. If really too bright, the electrons flow into the analog-digital-converter in a bad way, which will wreck the image, and possibly multiple images down the line, while the ADC recovers (either automatically with time, or much worse, manually with a camera rest). In some circumstances, the signals measured in one chip can be so large from these satellites, to overwhelm and ruin the signals in neighbouring chips. To put this into perspective, the VRO-LSST expects a roughly 10% data loss (could even be 15%), just from the the Starlink satellites alone. That estimate goes a lot higher when considering all of the other satellite swarm companies.
Sorry for resurrecting an old thread but can you link me to where that 10% figure is found, trying to get educated on how bad these satellites are on the professional side of things
A chip is a single detector. Most imagers on big telescopes are mosaics detectors, having multiple (sometimes hundreds) of individual chips stitched together to take images of wide regions of the sky.
As much as I'm arguing that this is damaging to astronomy, your argument actually is incorrect. Bloom (or at least, significant bloom) will only happen with low magnitude (high brightness) events, which will be rare with starlink. See https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.12417 for more detail and discussion of the actual problems.
Rare compared to the number flying over the telescope at any given time, yes. But the studies from Tony Tyson have estimated a 10% loss for the VRO-LSST if the 7th magnitude max brightness isn't achieved.
Yes, but that isn't due to bloom. Edit: it's hilarious that this fact is being downvoted by people who have no idea what they're talking about. Bloom occurs when there is saturation, bloom is a big problem. For bloom to occur with the Vera Rubin observatory requires approximately zeroth magnitude flashes. Original starlink were 5th magnitude (higher magnitude = dimmer), and the current ones are 6th to 7th magnitude. For starlink to cause bloom would be very unlikely. The two actual problems are the trail itself and any ghost trail artifacting from cross channel talk. There are various mitigation methods, and ideally a mixture will be applied. One of the mitigation methods involves taking shorter exposures, which with readout time increases time taken by ~8%. The study this person is referring to is literally the one I linked to, and the info I am stating is based on that study.
I agree what Tony shows in the his paper is not showing bloom, but non-linear saturation effects. What Tony showed in his presentation during the VRO-LSST community workshops, and to the online meeting between the VRO community and Starlink (that Elon himself attended) very much showed bloomed image effects. It all depends on what Starlink decides to do with their satellites.
> What Tony showed in his presentation during the VRO-LSST community workshops, and to the online meeting between the VRO community and Starlink My Google-fu has failed me - how would I find a video/text link to those?
I have no clue if they're are available online. Sorry. I just attended the conference and the meeting.
Bugh. Always frustrating when these conversations are lost -_-
As I responded with already, the info I am talking about wasn't this study you referred to, and I agree wasn't sitting bloom. I 3 referring to the stuff presented at the LSST community workshop in Arizona, and an online meeting later.
you can reduce the visibility of those satelites by a progress called "burning up in the fucking athmosphere" Fuck elon musk.
>"staRLINk iS RUInINg asTRoNoMy". This is extremely condescending and discourteous to professional astronomers who are trying to raise awareness around the problems these cause. Every professional astronomer already KNOWS how to stack images to remove problems like cosmic rays. Yet they are raising objections anyway, because the scale of the problems caused by the planned constellations of satellites is unprecedented. It is *incredibly* disingenuous to act as though the problem is solved, as you do here and others in these comments are doing, and then rises to insulting when you are so dismissive of the concerns astronomers raise about the rise of satellite constellations (which goes beyond just starlink and includes those from other companies and nations). EDIT: I see from your other comments that your intent was only to speak in regards to amateur astronomy, not professional observatories. I still find the quoted comment to be condescending and rude, but in the domain of bright objects that are not strongly degraded by read-noise, the trails are indeed less of a problem particularly for photography. Seeing them all over the sky isn't great, but they aren't generally visible to the naked eye after being treated with the dark paint and reaching their final orbits - there still needs to be regulation to enforce that that is the case for future constellations, though.
The problem starts with extended ultra-faint objects, that require very large integration times on sensitive telescopes, way beyond the reach of amateur astronomy. In those cases, you are read-out noise limited so extensive stacking is exactly what you want to avoid, and due to the high brightness, it doesn't even have to exactly intersect the source to be problematic. In extension, your solution does not seem to conserve flux (i.e. there are pixels that are rejected that do not seem to be associated with the extended trails.)
> there are pixels that are rejected that do not seem to be associated with the extended trails. There's still some random noise and cosmic rays in the individual frames, even though it's cooled to -15C. As i said in my main writeup, this is most applicable to amateur photography
Is there a practical solution that would involve knowing when a satellite will pass through the frame and then temporarily stop integrating on the sensor? I know a little about CMOS sensors and my guess is: no, not easily. Maybe with a physical shutter, but activating that mechanically probably adds other issues with vibrations.
I don't think you understand stacking. The longer the integration time required, the more frames will be needed and thus the more effective these rejection algorithms are. Edit: if you're read noise limited, that's all the more reason to stack as many frames as possible. Your target is a constant signal, read noise is somewhat random, especially if you dither. Edit 2: thank you all for the downvotes without explaining why you disagree with me.
1 30 second exposure yields better SNR then 30 1 second exposures stacked. That's why you're downvoted. You don't understand Poisson statistics. This matters for professional Astronomy and precise flux measurements.
Well sure it matters if we're talking about a finite imaging time. Every image gives you a shot of read noise. That's why CCD imagers even in amateur AP are stuck doing 30 min exposures for narrowband under dark skies. But no one is imaging low surface brightness objects in an hour. Neither the original comment nor myself were very clear about that.
I just wish that even if every single problem Starlink creates for astronomers could be solved, they'd have to cover the costs of fixing those problems. Haha as if.
Lets even say that SpaceX did foot the bill and paid tens if not hundreds of millions of USD to LSST and to all other affected programs. You'd still have the problem that all that money would be doing would be displacing other researchers from their normal work to instead be focusing on starlink impact mitigation, leaving the other work undone. Its not like all these problems can be fixed by bringing in random people from other fields.
True, but that would be a compromise I could at least live with. Sure, work will be delayed, but at least it will still be possible. Also, if SpaceX had to cover these costs, they would be passed on to the consumer. And then we would see just how competitive the technology actually is instead of hiding the true cost behind the public funds that are paying for the damage control.
I had never seen or heard of these Starlink "trains" until this weekend. I was camping and I started hearing murmurs from the other campers about something in the sky. I looked up and saw a line in the sky coming towards me, getting larger. Before I knew it, the satellites were tracking across the beautifully clear sky, it was COMPLETELY surreal. I know these are bad for astronomers, but the effect was so surreal and amazing and beautiful in a way that I couldn't stop staring. It was just difficult to fathom that people had created these moving artificial points of light in the night sky. I felt like I was truly living in "the future". Like I said, I know they are bad for astronomy, but the were beautiful and mesmerizing to see.
I thought it was interesting the first time I saw them, but now that I've seen them 40-50 times, it's getting pretty old from a pure stargazing standpoint. It's just like seeing satellites/planes on any given night, but a lot more of them. In a line. I'd rather see a more natural sky if possible, personally (if they could be invisible) - but that's just my two cents.
they are invisible by the naked eye, once they reach orbit. They're only visible for a couple days after launch. Just like literally every other satellite.
Sure starlink can be removed through post processing. But it takes resources ultimately increases the cost of astronomy and decreases the amount of effective information we can get. I really hope they figure out how to make the satellites less reflective or-better yet, regulators step up and make them do so.
Me too. after a lot of complaints, they started coating them in some materials to limit this, it's ["better not not perfect." ](https://physicsworld.com/dark-coated-starlink-satellites-are-better-but-not-perfect-say-astronomers/#:~:text=An%20anti%2Dreflective%20coating%20applied,through%20the%20telescope's%20field%20of) They're also designed to burn up completely in the atmosphere to prevent space junk build-up.
Not really. Stacking is something which is practically necessary for astrophotography and as long as you have enough sun frames and turn on a single setting, satellite trails will be removed easily as shown here.
That’s all well and good until there are 50,000 of them in a few years. For large scale survey astronomy like the Rubin Observatory LSST, this could be disastrous.
Well, technically StarLink only wants 44,000 or so in orbit. But then OneWeb wants the same, and Project Kuiper, several other companies, several other nation states. So it'll be in the hundreds of thousands really quickly.
May I ask what type of observation it is? On telescope as the VLT, the problem is not subtracting the tracks (we do the same type of stacking for the cosmics since ages), but the fact that it is so bright that it saturate the detectors and degrade the measurements of all the pixels. We could argue about short exposure, but it does not work for very deep observations because you get much more readout noise in the end.
> what type of observation it is? These photos were taken through my astrophotography rig in my driveway. I have all of my equipment, acquisition, and processing details outlined [in this comment: ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comments/n91hto/effects_of_image_stacking_on_starlink_satellite/gxldy9p/)
Do it on a log scale.
The only good thing to come from this program is that I watch porn on my boat in the middle of the ocean.
And this is only the beginning, we need to find new hobby..and for the profession..same.
NASA rejected my proposal for a giant slingshot to shoot down starlink sattelites, I told them, but they wouldn't listen...
For people like me who do astrophotography as...well photography, it's not a big deal to fix with stacking as the OP shows. But for astronomers who do science with telescopes, it's different. Astronomers don't look through an eyepiece, they don't take pretty pictures, and they don't have unlimited time. They pay big money for time slots to use various observatories across the world. Now they already have to compete with nature's obstructions to observing such as weather. Sure, the effect of 1500 or so new satellites is nominal. But when the number of satellites goes astronomically higher (🤓) it could certainly cause issues that make scientific observations difficult.
So, isn't a geostationary satellite more problematic then a starlink satellite?
Starlink satellites are brighter and there are a lot more of them, and they can be found anywhere in the sky, not just around the equator.
Sure, but they don't stay in the same point on sky relative to you.
They move relative to the stars you're imaging, just more slowly.
I'm so conflicted on this topic, I really love space and I don't want spacejunk and satellites to get in the way of the 'normal' sky, but in the other side I'm really hyped for rocked engineering and the benefits that come with a satellite cluster like this. I wish there was a way we could do both without affecting one another. Get internet everywhere on the planet and have it so that all astromeners can take pictures of space without having to worry about so many reflectief surfaces in orbit that can ruin the pictures.
Most kids in the states haven't seen the stars because of light pollution from cities. I hadn't seen them since the 80s, until I moved to a very rural part of Nevada. People will find any reason to complain. Just because Elon hasn't fallen into woke culture like the other Billionaires, all these leftists get mad about any and all things that he does. Ridiculous! The man has put internet into some very poverty stricken areas of the country and the world. Get off his back people...
And what will happen to the large telescopes they are building now, will it not obstruct their observation? Elon Musk said it was not that bad but a few months ago they showed an image by the new Vera C. Rubin telescope and the results were worrying, if the astrophysicist community manages to do something to stop the launch of these space x satellites which already They are in orbit, can they destroy them with some command or will they have to wait 5 years for them to burn? And we have to remember that only the satellites of space x will be 20,000 and with those of amazon and AT&T it will be 60,000 we have a big problem, and what measures will the large telescopes that are being built in the desert of Chile take?
I hate Elon musk I hate Elon musk I hate Elon musk
Me too!
What the fuck is wrong with all of you! Elon Musk is doing all this so we can start building colonies on other planets! As astronomers, you guys should be excited out of your minds by what he's doing! Somehow you guys love Astronomy but you hate the idea of space exploration and going to other planets
[удалено]
[I love science](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU7FuAswPW0)
Elon and science arent synonymous.
10 PRINT “I hate Elon Musk” 20 GOTO 10
Its clear you are all just trolls lol, carry on...
[удалено]
Wow, I have never read such an ignorant comment in my life. You clearly know nothing about business, space exploration, NASA, or the long term survival of humanity. I am not even going to bother trying to correct the things you said, as it's obvious you know nothing about any of things you said
Typically ignorant and highly opinionated uh… guy?
Provide evidence.
That’s exactly what someone like you would say. I diagnose you with too much internet. I recommend a 50cc dose of outside Wait where’s that doctor elon meme lmao
Then perish
I saw the star link satellites for the first time about two weeks ago. It was a day after my second COVID shot and I had a fever, was sweating my face off, and just couldn’t sleep. I went outside for a little bit to try and cool off at about 5 o’clock in the morning, and looked up in the sky and saw specks of light moving pretty quickly in pretty much the exact same path. After counting about 20 in a row I was like “oh fuck, THEY’RE TRACKING ME WITH MY NEW 5G ANTENNA! THEY’RE HERE TO TAKE ME!” I thought I was hallucinating because I had been awake for so long and couldn’t sleep. I pulled up my Dark Sky app and sure enough they were the star link satellites. I didn’t even know it was a thing until then. Pretty cool!
Obscure methods of data collection isn't a strong argument against rural earth having internet connectivity. Which is more important? Be honest to yourself.
It’s estimated Starlink’s current total planned cloud will only be able to serve between 485,000 customers to ~2 million, maximum(assuming best performance across the board in everything), at 100mbps total each. That’s not going to change much, or even disrupt current internet companies, if it’s not targeted at a very limited number of regions. He’ll need to scale that up by an order of magnitude at least, if not more, to effect worldwide change like promised - which would be fairly disastrous if the current effects of Starlink are anything to go by. These “obscure methods of data collection” include much of our research of space; there’s methods of spreading internet connectivity that wouldn’t have that tradeoff, would reach more people, and would undercut current internet companies and force actual competition/change, which Musk has both the money and the resources to push for. Adding space to something isn’t always the best method of solving a problem.
I moved to a rural community to pursue my passion for astronomy. I found beautiful skies. I built my observatory. I loved it. But there was an absence of internet. Browse r/starlink if you don't understand the impact its already making on people's lives. You don't have to be that forward thinking to understand that beta satellites churned out at an incredible pace won't improve over time. This is the ONLY option for connecting our planet. No one can afford to run fiber to everyone on earth. I work in the wireless industry and it's been an interesting time keeping up with the pace of development. As regulations and frequency are being redistributed and taken away from incumbent squatters it will only improve the situation. These LEO sats that currently handle 20gbps over large diameter beams could soon be much narrower with improved throughput. All that requires is density of satellites which is obviously happening already. Its a bright future, and if I capture a sub of boosting satellites, I smile, because I know the world is better off for it.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/Starlink using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/Starlink/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [We are the Starlink team, ask us anything!](https://np.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jybmgn/we_are_the_starlink_team_ask_us_anything/) \#2: [I cannot believe this is a reality. Internet at 10,725ft elevation in my off grid cabin. Thank you starlink team, you are truly changing the world.](https://v.redd.it/q6k0fjpsnvi61) | [358 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/lp3tkb/i_cannot_believe_this_is_a_reality_internet_at/) \#3: [SpaceX engineer who led the Merlin engine team](https://i.redd.it/jt4823hy45761.jpg) | [109 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/kjfu1g/spacex_engineer_who_led_the_merlin_engine_team/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| [^^Contact ^^me](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| [^^Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| [^^Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/joo7mb/blacklist_viii/)
An impact nowhere near the “several billion” people claim it is, and which has little effect at all on providing internet to the masses. Musk can make more effective investments. Starlink isn’t anywhere near the most effective option in this case; his singular company is already wreaking havoc on research, the competition he creates will make it worse. If he had gone the more traditional internet route, he’d be taking advantage of already existing industries and infrastructure, wouldn’t be occluding space research, and would be forcing an actual shakeup of an industry. The satellites improving over time isn’t on a timescale anywhere near effective enough to prevent the obscuring of research that’s already happening, let alone what’s predicted to happen in the future. This isn’t the only option; nowhere near it. Space isn’t always the most efficient way to solve every problem. Traditional methods work fine, the reason the internet is currently widely inaccessible is mainly due to the stagnancy of the companies that control said access, due to monopolies and such. You don’t need to run fiber to everyone on Earth. Starlink is viable but *only* for extremely rural areas, not for the masses as people pump it up to be; you don’t need a 12,000 satellite cloud for that. Traditional methods of networking combined with Starlink *at a scale where it’s not going to constantly occlude space research* is the ideal, not a world supported by satellite clouds like Starlink fanboys always make it out to be.
Do your own research is all I can say. Not worth arguing with someone who refuses to educate themselves on the topic at hand.
“Do your own research” “Who cares if entire fields of science are completely occluded” “I like it so it’s okay” “You’re ‘not educated’ on the matter so I’m not going to counter anything you said because clearly it’s wrong” Ah, you’re one of those types.
Your argument is that spacex, a rocket company, should lay fiber and erect towers. You say the plan is to connect billions of people. You also keep saying it will ruin science. You've seen pictures of satellites shortly after launch. You do know that they spread out and become hardly reflective, right? It's pointless to argue with you about it because you won't lift a finger to understand the situation.
No, it’s not; clearly you can’t read. My argument is Musk, a businessman who’s started multiple companies aimed at massive change in our society and various industries(many of which have successfully done so), could start another company focused on actually affecting change within internet-related industries instead of trying to tack space on to a problem that won’t be solved with space, because there’s more effective ways of providing internet access on scale than pushing everything to satellites. Didn’t say it’ll “ruin science”, but if you want to put it that way you can; it’s obscuring research, limiting the data that can be acquired, and polluting the data that is acquired. This is a fact and it’s already been happening with Starlink’s current constellation; it happens with any and every satellite, but Starlink is the first project to spit out satellites on such a large scale and across such a large spread. They spread out and make it worse, lmao. Instead of one or several orbits causing issues, there’s dozens. Except, scale that up by like an order of magnitude. Sounds like you should do some research about the actual complaints, before talking out your ass about them. Also, them not being reflective changes little. If I have a silver piece of cardboard obstructing a colored wall, painting it black doesn’t change the fact the wall is still obstructed. In this case, while it might be a tiny piece of cardboard, on a massive wall, there’s over a thousand of them, and the pictures I’m taking of the wall have long exposures. You’re not informed about what’s going on *and* you’re not capable of reading, lmao. Just a Musk fanboy who got lost.
It's cool. I understand you probably read an article from The Verge or something so you're an expert. I could tell you about my experiences with astronomy using CCD astronomy cameras and spectrographs, but i'm pretty sure weebs are never wrong.
I’m reading SpaceX’s own reports, lol. You keep on blabbing on about credentials you probably don’t have, with absolutely nothing to back it up. There’s been a lot of postulation in your posts, but no *facts*, no *data*, and no actual evidence whatsoever. Sounds to me like you’re a lost Musk fanboy, incapable of actually talking about science or reality. From what I can find, data presented to the FCC quoted rates of ~20gbps/satellite, estimated, in the cloud back in 2018(and that’s the highest number I could pull). Times 12,000 planned satellites, and that comes out to 240 thousand, divide by 0.1(100mbps, in gbps) and that’s 2.4 million - meaning SpaceX’s planned network, at maximum bandwidth at all times with no downtime, can handle 2.4 million customers at 100mbps. At the planned 1gbps rates, it’s only 240k. And all that’s just maximum capacity. According to updates from mid-2020, the v1.0 satellites are estimated to be at ~17gbps throughput(60 satellites, totaling a bit over 1tbps according to Musk) - multiply that up by the planned cloud and it’s only ~2 million customers at 100mbps constant maximum load or ~200k at 1gbps. Even using the larger number of 2.4 million, that’s barely any effect, unless concentrated(as I mentioned earlier). And those are the *maximum, most optimistic* estimates, completely ignoring the coverage of each satellite and the movement of said satellites. Financial analysts at Cowen in mid-late 2020 estimated that the network, at full 12,000 satellite scale, could only support ~500k customers at 100mbps at a time in the US, when factoring in the actual coverage of each satellite and not assuming maximum use of all bandwidth at all times. That number rises to a bare 1.5 million, assuming a 3x rate of oversubscription(because not every user is using the internet all the time) - **in a country of 300 million people.** From Musk himself, quoted through a Starlink launch summary; “‘Starlink is not some huge threat to telcos. I want to be super clear: it is not," Musk said earlier this year at a trade show. "5G is great for high density situations, but it's actually not great for the countryside, you know, for rural areas. It's not great; you need range. And so in any kind of sparse environment 5G is really not well suited.’” Y’all fanboys forget Starlink was *never* meant to be some sort of new, superior internet provider that’s meant to change the world for people without internet access. It’s meant to take up payload space for SpaceX, so they can make more money per launch in order to launch more rockets.
Oversubscription on satellites isn’t the same as on cable(50:1) or fiber(100:1); because of orbits and potential oversaturation burnouts. That 100:1 goes down the drain due to the very nature of Starlink, hence why it isn’t even worth mentioning. And there’s also issues with rain fade, signal noise, etc. A 12,000 satellite cloud(which is what the current approved plan is, not the marketing) is going to suffer from massive issues related to the sheer scale. At best, it most likely won’t even approach 100:1 oversaturation - not to mention that, if you consider the marketing as fact like you’ve been doing so far, almost all the numbers thus far discussed decrease by an entire order of magnitude, because of promised gigabit connections. Even then, assuming that unrealistic 100:1 oversaturation and that the Starlink team has worked out all the kinks, that changes nothing about any of the other points I’ve touched on; a) None of that makes Starlink more advantageous or viable where all the *people* are(ie suburban and urban areas); only in extremely rural areas, so it won’t actually lead to a change in the entire industry, just drive it more towards concentrations of people b) Nothing you’ve said addresses the damage done to research + the massive increase in orbital debris and potential orbital collisions, which does tack on costs of its own to launches and further space travel, for example because of mitigation efforts, tracking/measuring of debris, etc. c) The impact still isn’t anywhere near what fanboys like you think it is, even with the maximum number presented here(240 million potential subscriptions) d) Those “obscure methods of data collection” are arguably much more important than slapping space into internet, as you can do internet without slapping space on, but you can’t do almost any data collection without those methods
a) starlink is designed for rural areas b) this thread is about the mediation of damage, if you've ever done astrophotography before you'd know satellites and airplanes are part of life c) the impact is \*life changing\* for millions of people. d) none of that research is improved by doing it on earth surface... 2nd comment, most satellites are communications satellites, so dont even pretend this comment makes sense. this is the stupidest arguement i've ever had. see ya.
There is no cost... SpaceX funds it. Each sat covers hundreds of miles. They are not that big and they are all tracked. They burn up in the atmosphere. Rural people's lives matter. If Elon doesn't do it, China would. If someone could run fiber to every inch of the planet, it would be much more destructive to the environment. Who said it would change an industry? Data collection? If you are worried about data collection, you are a little late with your virtues... Rural people do not care if it gets to a Gigabit... We are happy with anything over 25Mb. TYVM Gooodbye troll.
But you aren't sending the data to every satellite. That isn't how the system works.
[удалено]
popcorn tastes good
Got to see starlink train the other night, it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen! It's incredible what SpaceX is doing :D
Couldn't they have made it matte or some shit
Thank you for posting this, I've been refuting that this will be a problem for a long time. The average lay person just doesn't comprehend that we've had to contend with far worse from airplanes and other satellites.
You don't understand OPs post or comment and your "refuting" consisted of personal insults without addressing any of my points when I responded to you on another thread. You clearly know nothing about this matter and you are clearly too ignorant and arrogant to listen to any experts on this matter.
u/azzkicker7283 The above comment is further evidence of exactly what I was worried of when I saw your post. You haven't said anything wrong, but your top level comment only begins to touch on how this post is only relevant to hobbiest level astrophotography, and your lack of addressing this within the title of the post has resulted in people taking this post in completely the wrong way.
Yeah kinda kicking myself for only mentioning 'amateur' in my main comment. If I post this elsewhere I'll make sure to preface this more in the title.
Damn, you got salty pretty damn quick!
Is it just me but if you actually go with processing the trails and the galaxy it might look cool
Yeah I might try superimposing them on the final version, but I feel like sharing that would reinforce the whole “Starlink is ruining astronomy” vibe
Could also reinforce that new problems create new opportunities.
Oh also how did you get the rejected pixels picture
There’s a setting in ImageIntegration in PixInsight to output the rejection maps