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Comment by strainer | Hacker News Reader

Adaptive optics should be able to adapt to any number of satellites traveling, quite predictably and diminutively through their frame of capture.

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That is not remotely what "adaptive optics" means. Word arguments like that degrade the quality of debate.

In case the commenter isn't aware, adaptive optics compensate for the shimmer of the atmosphere, not the presence of light-scattering objects between the telescope and a dim object part-way across the universe.

Relevant light scattering occurs in the atmosphere between the satellite and the telescope. It also occurs between every other light source, across the universe, and the telescope. Thats why the satellites contribution to light scattering is tiny. Even in the morning where one might catch the sun - the sky is already lightened.

Hard or soft optical adaptations to remove atmospheric distortions are far more demanding than processing required to remove low magnitude satellite trails, which is already developed and required on occasion.

Im broadly aware of a range of techniques which can be involved in adaptive optics. The quality of debate seems very low to me and not worth laboring words on when people are imagining low power satellite trails represent a big challenge to astronomical image clarity.

Signal to noise ratio is the limiting factor in these observations. Decrease the signal and suddenly whole sets of galaxies fall below the noise floor.

I have not seen any information that light from these satellites could scatter and brighten the night sky a significant amount. This article just shows their paths are visible on a sensitive image, but the paths themselves amount to tiny fraction of the image. There is no claim they added significantly to the overall exposure. With their being bright planets and stars already present in the sky, I don't expect they could.

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