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Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

There are 10s of thousands planned and other companies eager to put up their own constellations.

Those that fall are planned to fall and to be replaced .. the issue is that are now thousands (and will be more) sats in LEO orbits polluting the night sky with both visible light and transmission spectra energy.

Doesn't matter much to those that live in cities and can't see the stars in any case .. but it's a blight to those that formally had clear skys, and to both visible and radio spectrum astronomers.

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They are not visible to people when the satellites are in the shadow of the Earth (at night)

> are not visible to people when the satellites are in the shadow of the Earth (at night)

Night is altitude dependent. Satellites can be in sunlight while the ground below is pitch black. (That said, I find the complaints about visual pollution silly.)

Out of interest, where do you live on the light polltion map [1], Bortle scale [2]?

Do you have any sense of what you're missing out on or how bright and distracting tens of thousands of LEO sats glinting in the sun are, or to what degree they mess up long exposure visible astronomy shots, or the noise they make for radio astronomy?

I have no issue believing that you find "complaints about visual pollution silly" .. I'm guessing that would be because it has zero impact on you.

[1] https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bortle_scale

> where do you live on the light polltion map

Class 2. I can just appreciate the night sky with satellites in it. (They’re fun to watch.)

> to what degree they mess up long exposure visible astronomy shots, or the noise they make for radio astronomy

One is a luxury pass-time. For the other, there are workarounds.

The Desert Fireball network is visible astronomy used to find rocks on the ground within 24 hours of impact - thus delivering insights into the early formation of the solar system and occasionally insights into extra solar material.

I think of it more as science than as a luxury pass time but you're welcome to your opinion.

Streaking trains of LEO sats are a damn nuisance.

Science? What theory are you testing?

You know that gathering evidence and observational bit?

That part.

As you asked, you might enjoy:

https://www.amazon.com.au/What-This-Thing-Called-Science/dp/...

and then move onto Lakatos, Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Musgrave, et al.

But for now, baby steps.

You’re being needlessly condescending.

But I think you’ll find it’s a harmless question: What are you gathering evidence for exactly? What is the purpose of your observations?

> think of it more as science than as a luxury pass time but you're welcome to your opinion

There may be a niche for an open-source error-correcting model. These birds’ orbits are known and can be filtered from public databases. If you’re tracking meteors, you’re collecting enough data to project those orbits onto your field of vision and thus remove them as false positives.

For the luxury of taking beautiful photos, I unfortunately have nothing. (Though again, I find their paths pretty.) For the other, there are workarounds.

I live in Bortle class 3 and I don't notice more satellites now when star gazing then I remember 10 years ago.

The hundreds of starlink satellites are totally invisible to me, except sometimes right after launch.

A starlink satellite train is amazing to watch and I'd love to see it a few more times.

EDIT The light pollution that really bothers me is the terrestrial light pollution. There's several cities within an hours drive of me, and they make such a large glow in the sky.

FWiW I'm deep in class one area with no human glows on the horizon at night .. and in a large radio quiet zone - save fromn the chatter of unsheilded LEO sats above.

Some are switched off on over pass, many aren't.

I look forward to when all constellations are set to shut up when over head and the their surface an attitude are altered to minise reflection.

> when all constellations are set to shut up when over head

Total off is unreasonable, but a safety mode where chatter is reduced is doable. Particularly with LEO constellations. This could be done by e.g. the FAA, perhaps even solely through rulemaking.

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