Hacker News Reader

Comment by valuearb | Hacker News Reader

If the entire field of astronomy is so educated on the subject, why do most not know Starlink was never visible except at dawn or dusk, and it’s already implemented successful mitigations for those tones with visors?

View on HN

...wow.

(1) astronomers are pretty darn aware of everything going on, and it's really shocking as an astronomer to see these sorts of claims. There have been close collaborations with Space X to try to mitigate some issues, but these are partial mitigations and the most important ones are only planned, not implemented. The "successful" mitigations I think you're referring to is their "DarkSat" coating, which is not actually a successful mitigation. It is still ~2x as bright as the ~maximum level of acceptable brightness for e.g. LSST.

(2) Space-X did not release any details about brightness characteristics, and they themselves claim that they were "surprised" by the brightness. To people that work in space rather routinely, that is staggeringly incompetent.

(3) > why do most not know Starlink was never visible except at dawn or dusk

Near earth object (NEO) detection only happens during these times. NEO includes "asteroids that threaten human life" so I would hope you agree that this is pretty important. Also, depending on latitude and time of year, "dawn or dusk" can constitute your entire observing window. So this doesn't really make things better.

(4) all of these mitigations should be done before companies can start doing ~10,000 satellite launches. The only reason this isn't done is outdated legislation that never conceived of this being possible.

SpaceX has just implemented sun Visors on the latest batch of satellites, so why aren’t you aware of that?

In space infrared detectors are the most effective way of searching for dangerous NEOs, and SpaceX has made them far cheaper to launch. How come you don’t know that?

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/nasem_r...

How about looking at what the username of the person you replied to spells out. Then click on it, look through their comment history and do some homework.

That doesn’t give them cart Blanche to post incorrect assertions. That would be called a “appeal to authority” argument.

I think you're mistaking "giving them carte blanche" for "highlighting one mistake they make in a long post containing a lot more information, context and nuance without acknowledging any of that in the slightest, and use that as if you caught them red-handed in a gotcha! that breaks down their entire argument".

I guess that's a specific version of the "cherry-picking data" fallacy.

how come you are so condescending?

> astronomers are pretty darn aware of everything going on

Then they claim SpaceX is only trying paint.

Unless Musk has secretly invented Romulan cloaking technology, being invisible doesn't help when you are trying to look at the stuff behind

What percentage of the night sky will be obscured if Starlink goes to 30,000 satellites?

Let me guess, if the visual radius of a one meter satellite 550,000 meters away is (1/X)^2. Thirty thousand would be 1/one trillion, or far less?

Its not just about Starlink though, its about setting a precedent before every company and country starts launching competing constellations. When should we start to care after the first few thousand or after hundred of thousands of eventual satellite's?

It would take trillions to appreciably dim the night sky. Wake me then.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com