(telescopes in space looking outside should have happened long ago, lets just get it done man)
but it increases to much more when you are much closer to the arc
The situation is one order of magnitude worst in radio-astronomy.
It is fair to state that satellite constellations will certainly be the main obstacle to multiple major scientific discoveries in the next decade.
[0] https://doi.org/10.1109/AERO50100.2021.9438165
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Crater_Radio_Telescope
However, it has serious disadvantages. It will exclude the poorer from astronomical research, except within the limits enabled by whatever cooperation the richer will be willing to do with them.
For the richer, that will make astronomical research much more expensive. When even USA, who claims to be the richest country, cuts a lot of the scientific funding, this makes likely a great reduction in the research targets that could be accomplished, even if a Lunar array of telescopes and radiotelescopes and communication relays for them were approved.
While professionals might still be able to do some work, the amateurs will be able less and less to enjoy the sight of the distant Universe.
There are already many years since I have become unable to see the sky that I enjoyed looking at when young, because it cannot be seen from the city where I live, due to light pollution (and high buildings). To see it again, I would have to go somewhere up in the mountains, far from a city or village, but I have not succeeded to do this recently. Even there now you can hardly look at the sky without seeing satellites, and it will only become much worse.
Nowadays there are many children who have never seen even once the sky that our ancestors were seeing every night, so many passages from old texts that mention the sky are unintelligible for them.
And with 9 million customers its not.
There are some classes of observatories, which you cannot build in space but which are still affected by satellites to some degree.
Do you really think a starlink style installation won't be put in orbit of the moon before such a telescope could be funded?
Hell, astronomers were telling us the sun orbited the earth for 99% of human history. Shoot forward to the present day and they can tell us… the universe started at some point somehow. Great job guys. Really earning those billions in grants.
Actually going to space has far more value.
More satellites means higher risk on that happening and not going to space until all the debris of a collision deorbits.
Is the camera exposure taking a few seconds of break between takes that get stacked later with some "missing" moments in between?
Here is a link to the original photo and it's description (German) by Uli Fehr: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Nachtfotografie/posts/264063...
Last time I did astrophotography was a few years ago, before Starlink made the problem considerably worse, but satellite trails were relatively easy to remove with stacking. I'm sure it's harder now but definitely still possible, so I'm assuming in this case leaving them in was done on purpose to highlight the problem.
EDIT: Looking better at the picture, I belive this was taken with a star tracker and then composited with a shorter exposure of the foreground. Notice how the foreground, even far away, looks considerably blurrier than the stars, and how the tower in the background has some light streaks. This is exactly what you'll see if you use a star tracker. Rather than star trails, you'll have "foreground trails". This would explain why there are relatively few gaps in the satellite trails, since the exposures can be much longer.
As for actually holding down the button, you can either use an external wired shutter button that has a mechanical lock to hold it down, or you use a wired controller that has an electronic timer, or you use a software feature in the camera to set the bulb timer.
There's an equilibrium between exposure duration, aperture, and ISO that gives the best results for the conditions with a minimum amount of sensor noise, and getting close to the equilibrium and stacking the images typically gives better results than one massive exposure.
I've taken multi-hour continuous exposures on my iPhone + iPad (both "normal" and "light trail" variants.)
By the looks of [0], you can do at least 90 seconds on the Olympus E-M5 MK II - which is what I have and I'll see if it can do 10 minutes tonight.
[0] https://www.olympuspassion.com/2019/08/26/long-exposures-wit...
For extra long exposre its recommended to use also a stable powersource.
Their obvious dual-use nature makes them tempting, and a military target if a large conflict will take place in the near future. I hope their lower orbit will help any space junk burn up fast.
You could paint them black but they’d probably get quite hot.
The Iridium-Kosmos collision fragments have been up there since 2009, and that's a massive spray of junk just from one disintegration in LEO.
;)
We are a planet with 8 Billion People.
Do i want cheap and reliable internet everywhere and perhaps work remote? Yes. Should someone like Musk destroy our look into space for just me and my use case? No.
In the meantime, Starlink is the only thing that gives my sister in Puerto Rico access to the internet when the grid gets completely nerfed by a hurriance so she can tell us she's alright, well, that and landlines if she gets a power generator, otherwise, we're left to wonder how my sister and nephews are doing.
We also don't need starlink as a stepping stone.
What we need is food for the planet, resiliance infrastructure, proper health care, stable energy grids.
