Remember when???

Starlink just filed for approval to put 100,000 of their satellites in orbit. The Chinese are now working on their own orbital internet system and they are talking about launching many tens of thousands of satellites. In a generation, people won’t even be able to see the stars for all of the satellites. Apparently people are more in love with their internet connection than they are with the night sky and that doesn’t bode well.

John

It’s somewhat funny John, I “liked” your comment and then thought about the irony of liking your comment…maybe they should add an “agree” button. 😁

John Hayes · Jun 12, 2026, 03:03 AM

Starlink just filed for approval to put 100,000 of their satellites in orbit. The Chinese are now working on their own orbital internet system and they are talking about launching many tens of thousands of satellites. In a generation, people won’t even be able to see the stars for all of the satellites. Apparently people are more in love with their internet connection than they are with the night sky and that doesn’t bode well.

John

I’m willing to give most ‘people’ the excuse of having already lost their night sky to light pollution and having no experience of what more will be lost to Starlink and cohorts, but what I can’t fathom, is the predominant lack of concern (based on replies to other threads) within the AP community, so long as our software takes care of it that is….

Scott

Willem Jan Drijfhout · Jun 12, 2026, 01:28 PM

How many years before we can open the first remote hosting site in low earth orbit?

Or the moon…

Tony Gondola · Jun 12, 2026, 02:26 PM

Scott Badger · Jun 12, 2026, 01:20 PM

John Hayes · Jun 12, 2026, 03:03 AM

Starlink just filed for approval to put 100,000 of their satellites in orbit. The Chinese are now working on their own orbital internet system and they are talking about launching many tens of thousands of satellites. In a generation, people won’t even be able to see the stars for all of the satellites. Apparently people are more in love with their internet connection than they are with the night sky and that doesn’t bode well.

John

I’m willing to give most ‘people’ the excuse of having already lost their night sky to light pollution and having no experience of what more will be lost to Starlink and cohorts, but what I can’t fathom, is the predominant lack of concern (based on replies to other threads) within the AP community, so long as our software takes care of it that is….

Scott

I don’t think it’s a lack of concern as much as it is the reality that few people really care about night skies and that these companies and governments are going to do what they want to do. We might be able to get SpaceX to make some small changes and we can develop legislation but we have little control over other countries. The reality is, LEO is going to be fully utilized by commercial concerns right up to the limit.

I think a more interesting discussion is to be found in what techniques can be used to mitigate it. At current sat. numbers, the effect is minimal for most of us. Software rejection seems to be keeping up. At what point would that no longer be the case? I don’t know but I’m sure it’s possible to simulate. Then the question becomes, are there any techniques available in shooting or processing that can cope? We have learned to get amazing images under skies where you pretty much can’t visually see any stars so I don’t see it as hopeless. Difficult, maybe. Sub-optimal, sure, but not hopeless.

I can directly tell you that this was a big concern for LSST, but software came a long way. It will not pose a big difference in the end.
And with 100k satellites in space (if that happens) the price per launch will be lowered that the entry point for small space telescopes will be low.

Visually sure its horrible, but when on magnitudes of world problems, I would rather see a world where every human can have access to information available on the internet than minority of astronomers complaining about satellites in the sky.

Compare this to radio astronomy. Imagine if we stopped developing radio connections, phones other modern technology etc. just because radio astronomers wanted to have a “radio silence”.
I think the benefits outweigh all the bad that comes from it.

Luka

As observers in the visual spectrum, we’re lucky compared to our radio-astronomer colleagues. The amount of unintended electromagnetic radiation (UEMR) is 32 times more in the V2-versions of the Starlink satellites than they were in the first version (source: ASTRON). Can you imagine how our images would look like if the satellite trails were suddenly 32 times brighter? And in absolute terms the UEMR signal is 10 million times stronger than the faint signals the LOFAR telescope (a very large array radio telescope) is picking up….

I remember from a LOFAR speech some time ago that the suspicion is that the UEMR originates from power supply circuits in the satellites. Some small adjustments would eliminate a big part of the problem and only cost a few dollar per satellite. These are of the type that any earth-bound manufacturer of radio-transmitting devices (e.g. phones etc) needs to apply by default. They opened the discussion with Starlink, but at the time they did not seem very open to make changes.

A-and how about the increasing tonnage of metal vapor added to the atmosphere as the satellites are deorbited on a 5 year cycle? Or the potential brightening of the night sky in general? Even if all you care about are your images and satellite trails are of little effect, moving up the bortle scale certainly will be.

Scott

Tony Gondola · Jun 12, 2026, 05:09 PM

No doubt. I’d love to see some calculations on that.

Like this:

https://arxiv.org/html/2604.09427v1