Page:SATCON2 Community Engagement Report.pdf/26



Respondents were given the option to submit open-ended comments on their view of both satellite constellations and the potential impact. Comments spanned a wide spectrum. A selection of comments, covering different viewpoints, are highlighted below:

I’m concerned about the current “gold rush” to populate space with micro satellites before governments across the globe put some form of control in place. Right now, it seems left to entrepreneurs with the wealth and means to do so. Commercial interests risk dominating scientific interests and the public good. There really needs to be some global coordination in this area. This could be a limit on the number of satellites, minimum standards for albedo and methods for retrieval such as space salvage — possibly a mix of all. Ultimately the space around our planet should be treated the same as a National Park, with a balance between usage and conservation.

It’s only the beginning and the real impacts may come when there are tens of thousands in the sky

The sky should be open for everybody worldwide and not only to those who sent up satellites

It's incredible. I am living at a latitude of 54° north ... and there are always up from 30% to 50% of my photographed single frames "infected" by satellite trails I can’t remove by algorithm ... I have to eliminate them by hand ... it's terrible

I reject frames to mitigate the effect on stacked final images, but [it] is another source of data reduction to go with weather, seeing, light pollution etc.

I understand the issues (I'm a satellite engineer at NASA) that a large constellation will have on professional wide field ground based arrays but for the amateur astrophotographer this really isn't a problem. I shoot mainly wide field and I have only had the occasional run-in with Starlink. For the most part I'm just as likely to have a non-Starlink satellite pass through my 3–5-minute exposures. In 2020, I took more than 123 hours of data. This year, in just six months, I already have more than what I collected last year. I've rarely even removed a sub-exposure with a satellite trail because the modern pixel rejection algorithms are so good.

Astronomical research — especially photometry and spectroscopy of transient targets — will be/is being seriously impacted. Unlike pretty picture astrophotography, in which satellite trails can be removed through processing, time-series photometry requires all those sub-frames, and cannot tolerate pixel replacement algorithms to mask the satellites. There are sometimes transient events that happen before astronomical twilight, well over toward the western or eastern horizon, so the argument that the satellites will only be visible/detectable for a short period after sunset or before sunrise isn't valid for this type of research.

I also don't understand why each company needs its own constellation. Seems much more environmentally responsible to send up a much smaller fleet and share between companies.

I’m concerned with the interference to astronomical observations caused by these satellites. Also concerning is the amount of space satellites/debris to be managed to keep astronauts and those of us on the ground safe. Rh