Any thoughts on starlink satellites causing space debris and lighting polluting the sky according to what some people are saying?
There are already 4900 satellites in orbit, which people notice ~0% of the time. Starlink won’t be seen by anyone unless looking very carefully & will have ~0% impact on advancements in astronomy. We need to move telelscopes to orbit anyway. Atmospheric attenuation is terrible.
I am all for Starlink for the many potential benefits it may bring, but I think you may be downplaying the potential for disruption. Of those ~5000 satellites in orbit, maybe 800-1000 are in LEO. Way too early to jump to conclusions but you may want to dive a bit deeper.
If we need to tweak sat orientation to minimize solar reflection during critical astronomical experiments, that’s easily done. Most orbital objects are close to Earth btw, as shown by this NASA density map. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_deb…
@elonmusk Please see if there are ways to reduce reflected light downwards from the later batches of Starlink satellites, as they seems to be "more shiny/higher albedo" than others. Maybe some coatings/extra mirrors would help. Thanks!
Agreed, sent a note to Starlink team last week specifically regarding albedo reduction. We’ll get a better sense of value of this when satellites have raised orbits & arrays are tracking to sun.
But if you can throw up a few Starlink-chassis space telescopes, I'm sure that'll smooth things over with the astro community. Especially since they'd be able to return the data quickly via... Starlink.
Would love to do exactly that
Well lets hope this is the moment Elon Musk gets into the astronomy business and do his usual disrupting. Perhaps one could guilt-shame SpaceX into launching a couple of really cheap space based telescopes each year.
Yeah, great. Forgot to look yesterday, but caught them now, nearly directly overhead in Southern Germany. Some were occasionally brighter than ?Venus? further south. Only my neck suffered *g* Have to look for a better position the next days.
Starlink trails from a 60-second exposure. This was taken with iTelescope's T11 telescope about 15 minutes ago. I believe the trails starting at upper left are from the "leaders".I can put the FITS somewhere so that photometry can be done.
Well lets hope this is the moment Elon Musk gets into the astronomy business and do his usual disruption. Perhaps one could guilt-shame SpaceX into launching a couple of really cheap space based telescopes each year.Edit:Corrected for somewhat better spelling.
Quote from: JamesH65 on 05/27/2019 09:38 amQuote from: DJPledger on 05/26/2019 08:11 pmQuote from: ulm_atms on 05/26/2019 02:59 amThe Starlink train just went directly overhead. Getting nice and spread out now. Few small clusters left but counted over 50 dots before I lost it to sunset on them.Would post pictures but they just "fixed" the street light right in front of my house. It went out and I never called about it because I hated it...someone called though... Tried to take pictures but got nothing but orange sodium glare. Something may have to happen to it again..... Perhaps have a go at shorting out that streetlight in front of your house. Once you have put out that streetlight then have a second attempt at photographing the starlink train next time it passes over your area.So, you are recomending criminal damage? It costs quite a bit of cash to repair a streetlight (which usually comes out of local taxes), and they are generally there for a reason. For example, my wife finds it very uncomfortable walking along unlit streets at night. Please, reduce the selfishness a bit.It will be much better to view and photograph the starlink train if the sky is truly dark.
Quote from: DJPledger on 05/26/2019 08:11 pmQuote from: ulm_atms on 05/26/2019 02:59 amThe Starlink train just went directly overhead. Getting nice and spread out now. Few small clusters left but counted over 50 dots before I lost it to sunset on them.Would post pictures but they just "fixed" the street light right in front of my house. It went out and I never called about it because I hated it...someone called though... Tried to take pictures but got nothing but orange sodium glare. Something may have to happen to it again..... Perhaps have a go at shorting out that streetlight in front of your house. Once you have put out that streetlight then have a second attempt at photographing the starlink train next time it passes over your area.So, you are recomending criminal damage? It costs quite a bit of cash to repair a streetlight (which usually comes out of local taxes), and they are generally there for a reason. For example, my wife finds it very uncomfortable walking along unlit streets at night. Please, reduce the selfishness a bit.
Quote from: ulm_atms on 05/26/2019 02:59 amThe Starlink train just went directly overhead. Getting nice and spread out now. Few small clusters left but counted over 50 dots before I lost it to sunset on them.Would post pictures but they just "fixed" the street light right in front of my house. It went out and I never called about it because I hated it...someone called though... Tried to take pictures but got nothing but orange sodium glare. Something may have to happen to it again..... Perhaps have a go at shorting out that streetlight in front of your house. Once you have put out that streetlight then have a second attempt at photographing the starlink train next time it passes over your area.
The Starlink train just went directly overhead. Getting nice and spread out now. Few small clusters left but counted over 50 dots before I lost it to sunset on them.Would post pictures but they just "fixed" the street light right in front of my house. It went out and I never called about it because I hated it...someone called though... Tried to take pictures but got nothing but orange sodium glare. Something may have to happen to it again.....
I would very much love to see the FITS file!
Not sure about the photometry, I would need to take the apparent velocity of the sats into account, just comparing pixel brightness doesnt work.
Also, I need a comparison star, do you know where you pointed this on sky or which one is the bright star in the center?
Here are the calibrated and raw FITS files. [...]
4 x Falcon 9 debris + 60 "Objects" @ Space-TrackCOSPAIR NORAD OBJECT PERIOD INCL APO PERI2019-029BN 44295 FALCON 9 DEB 93.37 53.00 445 4342019-029BP 44296 FALCON 9 DEB 93.37 53.00 445 4342019-029BQ 44297 FALCON 9 DEB 93.30 53.00 439 4342019-029BR 44298 FALCON 9 DEB 93.30 53.00 438 434
Quote from: PM3 on 05/27/2019 06:15 pm4 x Falcon 9 debris + 60 "Objects" @ Space-TrackCOSPAIR NORAD OBJECT PERIOD INCL APO PERI2019-029BN 44295 FALCON 9 DEB 93.37 53.00 445 4342019-029BP 44296 FALCON 9 DEB 93.37 53.00 445 4342019-029BQ 44297 FALCON 9 DEB 93.30 53.00 439 4342019-029BR 44298 FALCON 9 DEB 93.30 53.00 438 434Interesting. So there are 60 sats and 4 debries. The second stage performed a de-orbit burn, so the 4 derbies might be the stringers that held the satellites in place during launch.
Interesting. So there are 60 sats and 4 debries. The second stage performed a de-orbit burn, so the 4 derbies might be the stringers that held the satellites in place during launch.
Shouldn't be staying up there for very long at that orbit. I wonder if SpaceX didn't want to be seen "littering" , or if there was more sectet sauce to the "expected loss of signal" right at the moment of deployment...
Creating debris with your deployment system is frowned upon, and their initial application said they didn't intend to create debris during operation of the constellation (which includes deployment). I hope they're sticking to that.
Sadly, SpaceX opted to not show us any of that But judging by the ohs and ahs, maybe sonething went not exactly to plan. This is rampant speculation, but maybe SpaceX had some ingenious way planned to release the sats while retaining the hold down mechanism, it failed, and they had a failsafe that just jetisoned the whole mess to ensure deployment.Cause when I heard the oohs and ahs my first thought was 'uh oh, sounds like something went wrong...'
Quote from: Swedish chef on 05/27/2019 07:41 amWell lets hope this is the moment Elon Musk gets into the astronomy business and do his usual disruption. Perhaps one could guilt-shame SpaceX into launching a couple of really cheap space based telescopes each year.Edit:Corrected for somewhat better spelling.There is no money to be earned in Astronomy. From the government point of view, Astronomy is a jobs program to train and keep educated people. From the science point of view its an absolute necessity to learn more about the universe. The first can be attributed to money, the second cannot. Elons disruption of Astronomy would be enormous with SH and SS alone. (edit: Full disclosure: I work in astronomic instrumentation)
...Elon had said he does not believe in asteroid mining...
