SATCON1 Report on Impact of Satellite Constellations on Astronomy

Re:SATCON1 Report on Impact of Satellite Constellations on A... by spenczar5 on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @03:48PM (#24286474)

Satellites are not new, so many techniques have been used and tested. https://aas.org/sites/default/files/2020-07/MitigationWG_Pre... is a relatively nontechnical survey of some of the techniques that Rubin plans to employ.

Suppressing pixel readings is not plausible with the current CCD designs, as far as I'm aware. These devices are so sensitive that any wiring needs to be done _extremely_ carefully to minimize crosstalk and keep temperatures extremely low (think under -100C).

Masking in data processing is the more likely technique.

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Re:SATCON1 Report on Impact of Satellite Constellations on A... by avmich on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:13PM (#24286738)

> Suppressing pixel readings is not plausible with the current CCD designs

Better than suppressing pixel reading would be suppressing pixel changes. The first process lets pixel to change as a result of incoming photons, the second one maintains the "unread" state.

Yes, current CCD devices can't do that. Advantage of this change is also in reducing crosstalk - if we need, say, to remove accumulated charge and for that we need to draw the current, the current may influence our reading of neighboring pixels. I'm tempted to look towards "smart mirrors" - MEMS systems, even for mirrors of 1 sq. micron - but purely electrical solutions might be possible.

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