Bad News for Astrophographers.

I guess screwing up our oceans...rainforests..​.air that we breathe is not enough. Now we have to screw up the heavens too. Very Sad. And all for Profit:

https://theconversatio​n.com …USM_GovDCD2J4N3​isxgKSKb-8

Yeah, it's going to be a weird future. Light pollution itself is already pretty bad but https://www.darksky.or​g/ is trying to combat it (see if they can help your area). I'm sure it will be a novelty to have some Starlink satellites photobomb your milkyway shots for a while until it become annoying having to remove them from all your shots.

The next question is what all these satellites are doing up there, not all will be just for internet traffic...

There won't be a place on earth that won't have 2-3 satellites doing whatever they are tasked to do sitting over you.

Yeah, "regular" satellites and very busy airplane traffic are bad enough. Now we'll have a mesh of these tiny satellites to spoil the sky. It seems I read where they are short-lived vehicles, too....not sure if they'll simply crash into people's houses or simply continue to float around, polluting the night sky.

Poor Musk needs the added income...

Intheswamp wrote in post #19160749
Yeah, "regular" satellites and very busy airplane traffic are bad enough. Now we'll have a mesh of these tiny satellites to spoil the sky. It seems I read where they are short-lived vehicles, too....not sure if they'll simply crash into people's houses or simply continue to float around, polluting the night sky.

Poor Musk needs the added income...

They will just float around with all the other debris from the 60s and onwards, or burn up on reentry. We just happen to see the 20 mile island of floating plastic in our oceans and get into an uproar on it, but nobody considers the thousands of things floating around our space. As this builds up, it becomes ever more difficult to schedule space flights to not hit the debris. At some time, that will have to be cleaned up. Maybe we need housekeeping satellites that just zap all these other dead things speeding past them, like asteroids from Atari.

Yeah, they're low-altitude satellites so the Starlink trash will either end up being a steady stream of junk floating over us or incinerate upon re-entry. But, look at it this way. If you're ever stranded on a deserted island and your buddy, Wilson, has a smart phone with him you can simply contact somebody on the internet to come get you!

Some interesting numbers:

$200-$500 million - per weather/communications​/defense/etc., satellite
$250 thousand cost - per Starlink internet satellite (they launch'em 60 at a time)

1000-12000 pounds - weather/communications​/defense/etc., satellite
500 pound - Starlink satellite

~2000 weather/communications​/defense/etc., in orbit
well over 30,000 planned Starlink satellites planned (along with Amazon's 2-3000)

It looks like there's already been some "traffic" problems. I think I'd be a little ticked-off if one of these "little" $250k internet satellites took out my $5,000,000 weather/communications​/defense/etc.,. satellite.

https://www.post-gazette.com …pact/stories/20​2002190057

And for anybody wondering what the fuss is about regarding astrophotography and Starlink here's a sample image of a flock of Musk's space junk on Astrobin... (not my image so just a link) https://cdn.astrobin.c​om …_16536x16536_kW​XURFLk.jpg

I got a phone call from my daughter last night probably 30-45 minutes after sundown, local. In between stints working offshore my SIL pulls hotshot trailers around the lower-48. He's a big ol' husky boy...seen him bear hug a clothes dryer and walk it up a half-dozen stair steps to a landing...not a wimp, but from talking to my daughter he seemed to be a wee bit concerned. He called from Nebraska (we're down in Alabama). Seems "something" had flown over him and he wanted her to get with me and see if I knew what it could have been. Seems a wide line of "lights" had flown over his truck as he was driving. Evenly spaced out and apparently many of them, all traveling at a fairly high rate of speed. I figure this probably would have been about sundown or shortly thereafter for his location.

I then researched a little (googled ) and found where other people have had naked-eye views of Musk's melons passing overhead.

I fear long exposure night sky photography for the average guy/gal will soon be history...the "final frontier" for all practical purposes for folks on earth is turning into yet another polluted area...what man can touch he destroys...or so it appears. And, for what *real* purpose?

"Startrails" are going to turn into "Satellitetrails". I think that the mission Elon has a just cause, but it does suck. The same reason that I would rather live more rurally is the same reason I'd rather not have so many satellites blocking off the stars. It'd be cool if there was some sort of movement to start kicking old junk out of orbit and have it just burn back up in the atmosphere at least to clear some of it out- though I'm sure that would require a whole lot of resources, and the reason for doing it isn't all too moving for most people.

apeturescience wrote in post #19172694
"Startrails" are going to turn into "Satellitetrails". I think that the mission Elon has a just cause, but it does suck. The same reason that I would rather live more rurally is the same reason I'd rather not have so many satellites blocking off the stars. It'd be cool if there was some sort of movement to start kicking old junk out of orbit and have it just burn back up in the atmosphere at least to clear some of it out- though I'm sure that would require a whole lot of resources, and the reason for doing it isn't all too moving for most people.

A "just cause"?

I would like to know your thoughts on this, seriously. So, what say you?

Hardly a 'just cause' when he claims to be making pollution-free vehicles and then spews tons of rocket fuel pollution into the atmosphere with each launch. Polluting the skies with disposable satellites? He wants to go to Mars, but we have to live with the mess he's making, we are breathing that stuff he's spewing.

Time for software to come to the rescue. The positive thing about satellites is that their orbits are extreamly predictable. So much of astro is already stacked/processed so why not add an additional routine to remove all satellites from the image before displaying. From an image processing perspective, it seems rather trivial.

greyswan wrote in post #19291953
Hardly a 'just cause' when he claims to be making pollution-free vehicles and then spews tons of rocket fuel pollution into the atmosphere with each launch. Polluting the skies with disposable satellites? He wants to go to Mars, but we have to live with the mess he's making, we are breathing that stuff he's spewing.

Those rockets burn kerosene (almost the same as jet fuel). The oxidizer is liquid oxygen. The exhaust is carbon dioxide and water, the same as any non-electric vehicle.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #19160785
They will just float around with all the other debris from the 60s and onwards, or burn up on reentry. We just happen to see the 20 mile island of floating plastic in our oceans and get into an uproar on it, but nobody considers the thousands of things floating around our space. As this builds up, it becomes ever more difficult to schedule space flights to not hit the debris. At some time, that will have to be cleaned up. Maybe we need housekeeping satellites that just zap all these other dead things speeding past them, like asteroids from Atari.

Intheswamp wrote in post #19161710
Yeah, they're low-altitude satellites so the Starlink trash will either end up being a steady stream of junk floating over us or incinerate upon re-entry. But, look at it this way. If you're ever stranded on a deserted island and your buddy, Wilson, has a smart phone with him you can simply contact somebody on the internet to come get you!

Some interesting numbers:

$200-$500 million - per weather/communications​/defense/etc., satellite
$250 thousand cost - per Starlink internet satellite (they launch'em 60 at a time)

1000-12000 pounds - weather/communications​/defense/etc., satellite
500 pound - Starlink satellite

~2000 weather/communications​/defense/etc., in orbit
well over 30,000 planned Starlink satellites planned (along with Amazon's 2-3000)

It looks like there's already been some "traffic" problems. I think I'd be a little ticked-off if one of these "little" $250k internet satellites took out my $5,000,000 weather/communications​/defense/etc.,. satellite.

https://www.post-gazette.com …pact/stories/20​2002190057

And for anybody wondering what the fuss is about regarding astrophotography and Starlink here's a sample image of a flock of Musk's space junk on Astrobin... (not my image so just a link) https://cdn.astrobin.c​om …_16536x16536_kW​XURFLk.jpg

Low earth orbit means atmospheric drag will deorbit them, if they are unable to deorbit themselves. They will burn up during re-entry.

Not everything burns up, and what is burning as it comes through our atmosphere certainly didn’t create the nicest of fumes and toxins and alumina in our atmosphere.

We shouldn’t burn plastics and electronics in our bonfires, but never the mind the 2 tons of things burning daily above us comprised of the same materials we aren’t to burn in our burn piles.

Not my favorite thing to think about personally.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #19292013
Not everything burns up, and what is burning as it comes through our atmosphere certainly didn’t create the nicest of fumes and toxins and alumina in our atmosphere.

We shouldn’t burn plastics and electronics in our bonfires, but never the mind the 2 tons of things burning daily above us comprised of the same materials we aren’t to burn in our burn piles.

Not my favorite thing to think about personally.

Small satellites like those, nothing hits the ground. We get 100 tons of dust and particles naturally each day.
https://www.nasa.gov …s/overview/fast​facts.html

Capn Jack wrote in post #19292027
Small satellites like those, nothing hits the ground. We get 100 tons of dust and particles naturally each day.
https://www.nasa.gov …s/overview/fast​facts.html

We don't get alumina deposited into our atmosphere at the rate that is being projected from all of this from dust and particles. Burning aluminum isn't good at all for our environment. No matter how you try to spin it, having tons of this stuff burning up isn't good for us and isn't anything like asteroids burning up. We have to obviously agree to disagree about how this project is harmless to us.

The annual equivalence of more than 500 civics in a pile being burned up until there is nothing left isn't very exciting. A little here, a little there, and all of a "sudden" we have a huge problem and wonder how we got there. Some of us get a bit more concerned than others, and that is okay.

I am more concerned about why my meals cost more every month these days and how I cannot even find the most basic of things on the shelves right now, but it also bothers me about the "throw away" behavior we have about everything these days, with no recycling, on the surface or in our atmosphere. I doubt these will be all that great, coming from Elon who still cannot create a good working door handle on Teslas amidst a number of other quality issues.