Soon swamped in satellites

[gorann]

For those of us engaged in imaging, here are some scary news:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48289204

Apparently Elon Musk alone is planning to put up 12 000 satellites, and others are also planning for sending up more satellites. Right now there are 2000 functional satellites according to the article and that is bad enough for astrophotography. I am dreading  what our subs will look like in a near future. I did not see any such fears expressed in the news article even if it is in the science-environment section.

[Jkulin]

Yep I read the article, lets just hope ditthering can fix it!🙄

[jgs001]

If you have at least 12 subs, statistical stacking should remove them, it worked great for airplane trails for me.. however, that's still a huge number of satellites, and without some way to 'bring down' the dead ones is going to make the orbits very cluttered.

[discardedastro]

16 hours ago, jgs001 said:

If you have at least 12 subs, statistical stacking should remove them, it worked great for airplane trails for me.. however, that's still a huge number of satellites, and without some way to 'bring down' the dead ones is going to make the orbits very cluttered.

They do seem to have that covered by virtue of being in very low orbits - they'll deorbit within 3-5 years without any power/fuel (i.e. fault conditions), and with power/fuel will actively deorbit at end of life.

But the impact on AP is worrying. Various people suggesting they'll only be visible in astro twilight due to the low orbit, but yeah. Going to be interesting to see how that develops, given the first 60 made quite a stir - 12000 is going to start looking very busy indeed. I wonder if someone could simulate it.

[wimvb]

Fortunately a solution already exists. Have a look at this highway

 

From this thread.

https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=11067.msg69188#msg69188

I'm sure other stacking software can do similar, or will develope similar methods.

[Gina]

Ah the "hyperspace highway".

[gorann]

20 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Fortunately a solution already exists. Have a look at this highway

 

From this thread.

https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=11067.msg69188#msg69188

I'm sure other stacking software can do similar, or will develope similar methods.

Yes, I do like the way the stacking procedures in PI magically remove satellites. I no longer have too spend hours clone stamping as I did in the old Nebulosity-stacking days.

[souls33k3r]

Is this the end of this aspect of the hobby? I've started to wonder if it's a good time to start selling the kit

[david_taurus83]

How big are these satellites? If only detectable in twilight then shouldnt affect too much? I only remove the brightest sat trail subs and stacking takes care of the rest.

[vlaiv]

Maybe we should be thinking about embracing a new hobby - high power laser aiming and tracking?

I think it will be doable with a good mount - at 500km distance, target with diameter of 0.5m will cover about 0.2". There will be some atmospheric interference - but that is something we are used to

Just need to calculate power requirements for incineration, or at least knocking them off into space.

[upahill]

Just read a post on CN that said they will basically only really be a problem when imaging is already difficult - so dawn, dusk and moon. If thats the case I can't see it having too much effect? Maybe P.I will have a new "Remove Starlink" routine soon

 

[wimvb]

4 hours ago, souls33k3r said:

Is this the end of this aspect of the hobby? I've started to wonder if it's a good time to start selling the kit

I think that we should put Musk's attempts in perspective to what's already up there. Even without SpaceX effort to add to the junk cloud, the situation is alarming.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris

[wimvb]

3 hours ago, upahill said:

Maybe P.I will have a new "Remove Starlink" routine soon 

Probably, but it won't be called that way.

Standardized High Translatory Regularization Masked Variational Reduction, or SHTRMVR for short is more likely. But it will be effective.

[upahill]

On the plus side, the project could be pretty amazing. Worldwide high speed internet access will literally change to way the planet develops.

[wimvb]

14 minutes ago, upahill said:

On the plus side, the project could be pretty amazing. Worldwide high speed internet access will literally change to way the planet develops.

Yeah, we can upload our images even faster to astrobin, cn, or sgl. The problem is that processing will take longer because we have to apply a dose of SHTRMVR, or the PS addon/plugin HLVS (hasta la vista starlink)

[gorann]

8 hours ago, upahill said:

Just read a post on CN that said they will basically only really be a problem when imaging is already difficult - so dawn, dusk and moon. If thats the case I can't see it having too much effect? Maybe P.I will have a new "Remove Starlink" routine soon

 

Well, it is bad enough already in some directions (try IC2118 the Witch Nebula), and that is with only 2000 satellites right now. Musk alone wants to send up 12000!

[gorann]

Ole-Alexander just posted this scary image of Elon's satellites on Astrobin:

https://www.astrobin.com/407590/

Edited May 27, 2019 by gorann

[Whistlin Bob]

On 27/05/2019 at 16:16, wimvb said:

Probably, but it won't be called that way.

Standardized High Translatory Regularization Masked Variational Reduction, or SHTRMVR for short is more likely. But it will be effective.

It will probably be the best tool you can possibly get, but you've forgotten the controls they will add for it 

The first will be a numerical slider controlling the strength of the function based on some incomprehensible statistical function. You will be offered values between 0 and 20. Any value exceeding 0.3 will totally trash your image.

The second will control the correction mode of SHTRMVR. The first option here will complete all of the activities necessary to fix the problem but not then actually change your image. The second will be the same but will then apply the changes. The first will be the default, because- you know- we all love to watch our computers slaving away for no good reason whatsoever...

[wimvb]

@Whistlin Bob, are you a PI jedi? 😋

[tomato]

Astronomers raising concerns:

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/28/spacex-satellites-could-blight-the-night-sky-warn-astronomers

 

[gorann]

8 minutes ago, tomato said:

Astronomers raising concerns:

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/28/spacex-satellites-could-blight-the-night-sky-warn-astronomers

 

Obviously they are not going to be invisible! Wherever we go (excepte very close to the poles) we will be reminded at night that a private company can just do this to all of us on earth without asking!

[Cyril]

Popular Astronomy's latest newsletter has a video link of the 'train' passing. View video here

[tomato]

I cannot see the astronomy community winning out over the lure of streaming cute kitten video clips at ever increasing rates...

[Cyril]

On ‎27‎/‎05‎/‎2019 at 16:58, upahill said:

On the plus side, the project could be pretty amazing. Worldwide high speed internet access will literally change to way the planet develops.

Heard today talk of people having a new disease, video game playing.

It will literally change  the way the planet develops? Zombie Apocalypse!!!!

[upahill]

11 minutes ago, Cyril said:

Heard today talk of people having a new disease, video game playing.

It will literally change  the way the planet develops? Zombie Apocalypse!!!!

I was thinking more of access to education in third world countries etc when I wrote that but yeah - it's going to improve my online gaming speeds at the same time 🤣