Rubin Tracks Skyscraper-Size Asteroids and Failed Supernovas

interesting, not a single word about satellites and how they are influencing the quality of their work. I would imagine the telescope is affected in particular of this problem by taking constant snapshots of huge areas in the night sky, but nope...

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NitpickLawyer 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Those are filtered in the data processing pipelines, before the data is exported. Streak-detection algorithms work very well, and they can mask known satellites from the data. It was, in fact, a key requirement of them being allowed to operate. VR is sensitive enough that it can sense the "secret" [1] national security sats, so they filter those early in the pipeline, and only issue alerts for things that are not satellites.

[1] - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/12/vera-rub...

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Jach an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

From the observatory itself: https://rubinobservatory.org/for-scientists/frequently-asked...

	▲	WithinReason an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I'm glad it's not a huge issue: "Simulations of the LSST observing cadence and 40,000 LEO satellites show that about 10% of all LSST images would contain at least one satellite trail" "Satellites and debris dimmer than 6th to 7th visual magnitude still cause streaks and glints, but typically leave the rest of the pixels scientifically usable."