> They are only visible when they are spinning up to orbit

> and are extremely easy to remove with the most basic of outlier rejection techniques; netizens often amplifiy outliers by max-stacking instead of outlier-rejected mean-stacking to make Starlink look much worse than it is

my understanding was that they are a problem on much bigger scale than yours "one dude with mobile telescope (or maybe just a camera?)"

sure, we don't have many film observatories anymore (where max-stacking is literally only thing they can do), but a lot of lower-to-medium scale observatories get polluted observations with not enough funding to clean up easily or too small FoV for cleanup to matter - frame gets ruined, observation needs to be longer for effect

Starlink has over 10k currently but has applied for at least 42k. And because it's now a US military technology, every other country is building its own. China is planning on launching over 12k satellites and Russia is working on their own.

It's too much

As a “night sky enthusiast”, as opposed to a real astronomer, Starlink and other satellites do not bother me much.

There’s certainly more of them than there used to be, but the satellites aren’t bright enough to affect your eyes or distract too much from the stars. If you do see one it’s a fun little exercise to try and figure out what it is!

Ground-based light sources are the real threat to night skies.

Both are real issues, to be clear. LEO satellites are a real and increasing issue.

(1) Considering there are now multiple companies planning to launch their own fleets of tens of thousands, satellites need replacing, etc, even if this was completely accurate, this will be a continuous and ongoing issue as it has been for years.

(2) The standards for astrophotography and for professional astronomical measurements are somewhat different! Also, I think you meant median stacking; mean stacking doesn't handle outliers as well.

(3) Whataboutism. Besides, you'd get no argument from me about replacing the majority of air travel with high speed rail, even without considering lights.

I agree that city light pollution is probably the bigger problem, especially for the amateur/cultural angle, but these are two symptoms of the general cause of our economic system not valuing the sky (or the environment generally).

> Most people didn't care about dark skys in the first place and still don't.

Most people were never given the opportunity to care.

Had s similar experience in the saharah desert.. I love all things space and have a teleclscooe I use regularly but seeing it in person and just laying down and watching for hours was another experience.

I would argue that probably not looking up all the time at night with predators around was an evolutionary trait though! (Semi joking)

There are a lot of Muggles in the world.

In parts of The Netherlands is simple never gets dark due to light pollution. It feels like it is always dawn. Pretty bad for your sleep cycle.

Some pictures: https://milieufederatie.nl/nieuws/6-op-de-10-nederlanders-wi...

Depends how far back we go for "first place". Stars are an interesting intersection of social sciences, hard sciences, and even some woo for a very long time. We must consider their interaction between religion, astronomy and astrology going as far back at least as history lets us.

National parks in California are indeed amazing. One time during a group trip to Death Valley, people were so amazed by the night sky that half decided to sleep outside the tents just to experience falling asleep while looking at the stars.

> Today I learned about the Bortle scale

When I first learned about the "clouds are noticeably brighter than the sky" part of Bortle 5, it was like it flipped a switch in my brain. I can't avoid noticing it now.

There isn't a single "dark side" of the moon that's always in darkness, the "dark side" of the moon is the side that always faces away from us (poor choice of name). It's fully illuminated during a new moon.

Lunar regolith would probably be quite damaging to optics. It's nasty stuff. I have seen ideas for building liquid mirror telescopes on the moon, though.

The far side of the moon would be useful for a radio observatory where one can block the noisy Earth while taking advantage of the ability to construct large collection area dishes (think Arecibo in a crater - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Crater_Radio_Telescope )

As to the dark side of the moon, I would suggest a read of the story "A Walk in the Sun" - https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0671878522/0671878522___1.htm (the dusk terminator moves at about 10 mph (15 kph) at the equator).

In space though you can do extremely lightweight construction because structures don't need to support their weight against gravity unless they are huge enough that tidal forces matter.

Like O'Neill's research group killed off the plan with the big cylinders because you would construct solar power satellites out of plastic films with vapor deposited metal and semiconductors and these would be light enough to send up from Earth and assemble in space.

I have read elsewhere that spinning mercury would be used as the mirror.

Most fruit crops need 8-12 hours of darkness but it changes depending on which point they're at in their life cycle. 20 hours of light is usually fine during the initial stages, then they require 8-10 hours of darkness to bloom, then back to 18-20 hours of light during the fruit growth.

(I'm not a botanist or a farmer but I grow greenhouse veggies for fun)

The world record holder vegetables are all grown in Alaskan summers, up north... where they get 20+ hours of daylight per day. Dunno, maybe the CAM plants would do bad (pineapples) but just about everything else benefits.

In the EU, the canary islands are known to have great skies. You check this map https://www.lightpollutionmap.info

I've been in some place with very dark skies, like Death Valley or Teide in the Canaries (https://www.teidebynight.com/tenerifes-dark-sky-reserves-hav...). It was great, but also not that much better than what I've seen closer to home in French countryside or in the alps. Maybe I didn't get the best conditions though.

Maybe it's okay for there to be places on the earth where high sped internet is not available?

> The municipal internet in the 1 person per square mile rural area.

Yet that person can receive mail, is within a few miles of a major highway, and is likely connected to or close to the electric grid.

Infrastructure is expensive. LEO Satellite internet is only cheaper because the environmental cost is not being accounted for.

> instead of shutting down agriculture in the only marginal spot on the west coast you can grow food.

Not an expert, but I would think greenhouse light pollution is not necessary for agriculture? It seems like obvious waste (money spent generating light that isn't going to photosynthesis), but I assume it's cheaper not to shield the lights than to shield them, so it's a matter of ROI and requiring people take care of their externalities.

Is there an economic argument that light shields will make agriculture in that area too expensive?

This is not only about being able to see a nice night sky (although I admit I love seeing one), it's a very much more fundamental issue.

Light pollution has dramatic negative consequences for wildlife and thereby our ecosystem we so heavily depend upon.

I can't just casually hop up to the Yukon for an evening of astronomy. It's about a thirty hour drive. Even relatively small towns have exurbs now because of our terrible city planning, so light pollution extends shockingly far. Alberta's probably the worst, almost the entire province (about the same land area as Texas) has light pollution.

> instead of shutting down agriculture in the only marginal spot on the west coast you can grow food.

The Okanagan will be shocked to hear they can't do agriculture! Perhaps we could just turn off the greenhouse lights for a couple hours, or install retractable shields/mirorrs on top of the greenhouses.

The entire world’s agriculture “shut down” at night before we decided we want every crop to be available everywhere year-round.

Just install light shields.

or you know, just adjust the lights a little

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