The Thirty Meter Telescope is now officially dead

[John Clark]

Although it comes as no surprise yesterday it became official, Jason Momoa (aka Aquaman) has won and destroyed the largest telescope in the northern hemisphere rendering us blind to the most distant objects that exist in half of the universe, and all because of an invisible man who hates telescopes and lives at one of the 3 best observing sites on planet Earth and the only one in the northern hemisphere. Not exactly a triumph of rationality or a day the human race can be proud of.

Even though the telescope's suporters won every court battle the power of Hollywood and Aquaman proved to be just too strong, the Governor of Hawaii said the telescope "would not be proceeding with construction at this time". The Governor also said "law enforcement will be removed from the site" apparently thinking that now that they've won the protestors will just go home. I hope he's right but, although nowhere near the thirty meter category, that mountain still has the largest telescopes in the northern hemisphere, and the entire observatory was shut down for over a month because the astronomers feared for their lives, and now that the mob has tasted blood I don't know what's going to happen. I do know that if I was an astronomer on that mountain I'd be scared right now.

 John K Clark

[Lawrence Crowell]

This is a loss. It goes along with an indigenous movement in Hawaii that in recent years has gotten ugly. I just hope the last American there remembers to take the flag with them as they leave.

[Tomasz Rola]

Oh. That is unfortunate. But astronomers have many more reasons to be
scared. In the meantime, a billionaire attempts to destroy a good part
of worldwide ground based astronomy, which is of course unfortunate,
too. If the article is correct, up to 12000 objects will pepper the
sky like blinking excrementa. Or 42000 if optimists have their
way. Optimists, too, believe in invisible things, like their luck to
never be called for responsibility for their actions. Myself, I find
pesimists to be much more trustworthy.

[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation)

]

QUOTE START:

The large number of planned satellites have been met with criticism
from the astronomical community.[106][107][108] Astronomers claim
that the number of visible satellites will outnumber visible stars,
and that their brightness in both optical and radio wavelengths
will severely impact scientific observations. Because the Starlink
satellites can autonomously change their orbits, observations
cannot be scheduled to avoid them. The International Astronomical
Union and National Radio Astronomy Observatory have released
official statements expressing concern on the matter.[11][109]

SpaceX representatives and Musk have claimed that the satellites
will have minimal impact.[110] Many professional astronomers have
disputed these claims based on initial observation of the Starlink
v0.9 satellites on the first launch, shortly after their deployment
from the launch vehicle.[111][112][113][114] In later statements on
Twitter, Musk stated that SpaceX will work on reducing the albedo
of the satellites and will provide on-demand orientation
adjustments for astronomical experiments, if necessary.[115][116]

On 18 November 2019, a Chilean observatory's observations were
interrupted by SpaceX's satellite train consisting of 60 Starlink
satellites. [117][118]

Concerns have been raised about the long term danger of space junk
resulting from placing thousands of satellites in orbits above
1,000 km, where orbital decay takes several thousand
years.[10][119][120]

The orbital debris and radio frequency interference issues
generated by Starlink satellite network may expose
population[clarification needed] to severe risks.

QUOTE END

--
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... **
** **
** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomas...@bigfoot.com **

[Lawrence Crowell]

The SpaceX program will narrow the window for observations. So long as these pesky-sats are illuminated by the sun they will leave streaks on astro-images.

LC

[Tomasz Rola]

I think commercially backed body of consultants will advice
astronomers to make their obs during a day, so the Sun's light will
not reflect off the pesky sattelites. And the media could condemn
those astronomers who do not work during day, like every other
hardworking human on the planet does. In science, there is no place
for primadonnas.

[Lawrence Crowell]

Well largely the problem is during the early night and morning. That is when these satellites would reflect sunlight. This would narrow the observation time. This cuts an hour or so from observing time, which is annoying.

In general with light pollution, satellites and other things astronomy is becoming more difficult. We could of course do everything with space telescopes, but with adaptive optics ground based observing in the optical band with large mirrored scopes is best. Space telescopes make the most sense for IR and UV outside the optical band.

LC

[Tomasz Rola]

On Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 03:25:38AM -0800, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
> Well largely the problem is during the early night and morning. That
> is when these satellites would reflect sunlight. This would narrow
> the observation time. This cuts an hour or so from observing time,
> which is annoying.

I am afraid you are very optimistic. When (if?) they launch more of
this garbage up, and it plagues whole sky around the Earth, you might
see the problem in a wholy new light. But there will be no easy way to
make it go away at this point. Even if the disruption is limited only
to times like an hour after sunset and an hour before sunrise, this
still means there will be problems with observing objects close to, or
coming "from behind" the Sun, if I understand it correctly.

From what I read of people who make astro obs, this is beyound of
annoying even with only 120 trash objects.

[

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/sightings-spacexs-starlink-satellites-spark-awe-astronomical-angst/

]

QUOTE START:

Hate to disagree with @elonmusk, but: that is true in wintertime,
but not in summertime. Then, with altitudes at 550 km, they are
visible throughout the night at middle latitudes like Europe. Just
like they were last night:https://t.co/xChLDH32uk

— Dr Marco Langbroek (@Marco_Langbroek) May 25, 2019

QUOTE END.

Or if you would like it in picture, this one has been calculated by
someone who apparently knows better than me, and it shows the number
of visible trashlink sats, assuming fleet of 1600. The projection
shows, for summer nights at mid lattitudes (e.g. London) there is
going to be a whole nighter with intruder sats.

[

https://twitter.com/cgbassa/status/1132551806125522945

]

Of course, since the business plans are already set into motion, I
guess we will have to wait and see what happens.

> In general with light pollution, satellites and other things
> astronomy is becoming more difficult. We could of course do
> everything with space telescopes, but with adaptive optics ground
> based observing in the optical band with large mirrored scopes is
> best. Space telescopes make the most sense for IR and UV outside the
> optical band.

Light poluttion is one thing, and this why there are some special
locations, where there is less of this. But trashlink is also going
to pollute (some) radio waves around the planet, 24/365.

I am not going to speculate about beneficial effects this whole affair
is going to have for "billions of poor people". I guess they have many
problems, but lack of movies to watch is on the far away end of the
list.

I am not going to quarrel about all this, because, like I wrote above,
I do not think there is much that can be done at this point. So, time
will show.

Nevertheless, I am always looking for more info. And I am not aware of
any kind of pilot program (giving fast net to undernourished guys)
which would demonstrate something to make me change my opinion. Are
you?

[Lawrence Crowell]

This will restricts observations. It is also a bit crazy because fiber optic Uverse is far better. This all looks to be part of the obsessive chase to secure a primary controlling position in the digital media landscape, along with the 5G hype

LC

[Tomasz Rola]

Yup. I agree, it seems very much so.