Re:How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astrono...
by astrophysician on Thursday August 27, 2020 @03:10PM
(#24297425)
Not just radio astronomy but any other type of research astronomy. Astrophotography has different goals. If you want a good picture, this isn't a huge deal. If you're measuring pixel-level brightnesses using state of the art equipment, the story is completely different. The "fear mongering" you state is not fear mongering, it's an illustration of just how much of a research image is ruined by these tracks.
I already have to do this for aircraft, and aircraft do a LOT more photobombing than satellites.
The satellite trail images people post all over the internet to fear monger the public are actually processed exactly the OPPOSITE way that astrophotographers would process an image stack. They are processed by taking the max at each pixel stack to emphasizing the outliers in the stack instead of eliminating the outliers and averaging the rest. No astronomer would ever do that.
I can imagine they might be a bigger threat to radio astronomy, though.