Agreed, I think the entire issue can be resolved with more telescopes in orbit.
I can understand European Southern Observatory (ESO) being concerned about becoming obsolete, but is the astronomy community as a whole concerned about the issue?
Quoted: Hainaut explains that "satellites, illuminated by the Sun, are much brighter than distant galaxies. When a satellite crosses what we observe, it makes a bright streak on our image, zapping whatever is behind it."
It sounds like this only affects visible light telescopes.
> sounds like this only affects visible light telescopes.
Nope - it's also an issue with radio telescopes, and radio arrays such as SKA
The Starlink constellation is leaking radio interference in bands it pinky promised it wouldn't and the issue got worse with successive generations despite assurances it would be addressed.
Such leakage isn't, of course, limited to dawn / dusk - it's ever present and ongoing.
Thank you for the correction.
"An analysis of 76 million images from a prototype station for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope found Starlink satellite emissions affected up to 30% of images in some datasets" https://www.space.com/astronomy/scientists-analyze-76-millio...
30% sounds massive, but I wish they had given more detail to how much the images had been compromised.
"Technically" all Starlink have to do <cough> is turn off / dial back their sats when they transit over (say) the Murchison Radio Quiet Zone.
I understand that can be tricky; cycling things on and off multiple times during orbital lifetime is more hardware stress inducing than leaving things static - but there isn't a lot of evidence of much effort being made on that problem aside from some insincere(?) lip service.
If the cost to orbit does get low enough as is the assumption in this article, I would be shocked if we didn't start to see amateur space based telescopes.
Light pollution from the ground is causing more impact on (naked eye / amateur telescope) star viewing than satellites. My comment is more for the niche of people who find value in purchasing satellite time, they could be pointed in the other direction.
I can understand European Southern Observatory (ESO) being concerned about becoming obsolete, but is the astronomy community as a whole concerned about the issue?
I understand there's currently around 722 observatories (some defunct, some are in orbit) based on this source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astronomical_observato...
But perhaps there are others I am unaware of.
Quoted: Hainaut explains that "satellites, illuminated by the Sun, are much brighter than distant galaxies. When a satellite crosses what we observe, it makes a bright streak on our image, zapping whatever is behind it."
It sounds like this only affects visible light telescopes.