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Starlink is increasingly interfering with astronomy, scientists say (www.semafor.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

What I meant was everybody who has access to the sky. If you live in the city, you can travel a relatively short distance from it to see the sky, but you can’t avoid starlink satellites no matter where you are.
Mainly, I meant us who go out at night with their telescopes and adapters for DSLR cameras to take stacked long exposures of all the cool things we can see from our pale blue dot.

The lights you refer to are millions of different municipalities ordering street lights designed with zero consideration for the light pollution they might produce. It’s a huge problem with no easy fix on a global level while starlink is literally just one company launching a shitload of satellites. What exactly makes you believe I’m not “rallying” against light pollution?
And yes, I’m aware our space pollution is already insane but people wouldn’t complain this much if starlinks didn’t travel at a much closer distance to us (and thus and block more view) and if they weren’t launched in such huge numbers in a short amount of time.
Now that I think about it, what the fuck are you even saying? That this is good and we should launch more starlink satellites? That the situation is already that bad that we shoudn’t give a shit?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Yes, starlink giving poor communities in the Amazon access to the rest of the world is good.

Yes, starlink giving internet to rural people who have been duped, manipulated, lied to, and cheated about getting internet for decades is good.

Yea, starlink undercutting greedy, corrupt ISPs with a service they had deemed "technologically impossible" and "financially infeasible" is good.

Yes, innovation is good.

Yes, internet access is good.

I am sad that people with telescopes are slightly inconvenienced and have to add in dynamic filtering to correct for minor anomalies of satellites moving by every 10 minutes. It is so sad.

But hey, look on the bright side? For your minor inconvenience, millions more people are now connected. They can get help when something goes wrong. They can participate in the modern economy and get access to more food and medicine. They can share their culture and learn from other's. Remote workers can be among them and bolster their lifestyles.

So at the cost of a small inconvenience that can easily be corrected, the lives of millions are improved. I could write all day to this tune but if you can't see such an obvious thing, there is not much I can say to you. I can just hope any lurkers reading feel seen and heard, cause I am really tired reading the nonsense against such a powerful gift to humanity.