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The Real Sky Net

🕑 Added 2023-03-07 19:27:26 +0000 UTC

Comments

David Peaker

Back in his 1945 article Extra Terrestrial Relays, Arthur C Clarke suggested that 3 satellites in geo stationary orbit could cover the entire world. Admittedly they would have needed a permanent repair crew to swap out faulty valves (tubes) and the amount of radio traffic must be orders of magnitude higher than Clarke envisioned but still, from 3 to half a million! What went wrong?

Ah Clem

As someone that now infrequently attempts ground based DSO astrophotography, I can tell you with confidence that all these great asshats putting up whatever they want, whenever they want wirh little or no oversight are destroying terrestrial observation, not just for amateurs but for the pros. Long exposure is a joke with all the streaking and short exposure requires stacking and processing. Some people are trying to develop software to analyze this pollution but if any of the traces interfere with your target, that frame has to be discarded. At least with all the light pollution I could use expensive filters, with the streaking, not a lot of solutions. But hey, why bother looking up. Just keep staring down at your phone. If it's interesting enough, you can see it there on social media (at least until the "next big distraction").