Starlink is increasingly interfering with astronomy, scientists say

It is crazy, and as I said in another comment this is going to be exponential. We will have many mega constellations like starlink in the next decade.

12/35mm for wide / nightscape shots, 135mm for regular wide field and 500mm for deep sky-ish stuff.

My sensor is APS-C, so the "effective" focal length is 1.5x the above lens values

Wow nice! If this was with the phone on a tripod or generally stationary that might be more than one trail, looks like 3 lines grouped up.

You can also see the Andromeda galaxy above it which is awesome for a phone!

Not necessarily a "starlink trail" you took a photo of a satellite, could be starlink could be something else. Also the astrophotography mode on the pixels is purdy cool and fun to mess around with

The ISS is visible from any single point you're standing on for up to about a minute when passing directly overhead and then the next orbit isn't close enough for you to see.

Some comm and weather sats here and there but really nothing crazy. It was even fun to have individual shots with a streak on it cause it was a relatively rare occasion.

Now there's just no hiding from it. Yes, the process of stacking images averages out the streaks in the final image, but for the average person with a wide lens taking a milky way shot during summer camping it's basically impossible to not have like 5 streaks on it.

They never mentioned the US. Starlink serves the entire globe. Right above your comment is someone in the UK that uses Starlink.

That's the main issue I see here, too. If you can provide this without the side effect, per-country, sure. Go ahead. Cool service.

Fucked up the sky for all of us? Who is "all of us"? Most of "us" live in mega cities with so much light pollution it blots out the night sky. Everyone in these horrid concrete jungles has high speed internet and absolutely no connection to the stars. Many of these people have never even seen the stars.

The ones living outside of these cities are the minority, and now they have internet. An internet they have been promised to the tune of countless billions for a very long time. They see the stars every night. Starlink has not impacted their connection with the stars at all.

So I am genuinely curious. Who, exactly, is the "us" you refer to?

And why are you not rallying against the light pollution that has denied billions access to the stars for at least generations?

He's kinda right though...

Remember when the US govt. provided incentives for major ISPs to upgrade\expand their service and they just kinda pocketed the money and did nothing? Imagine if they didn't. We may not have had a need for starlink.

Kessler syndrome isn't really that much of a risk specifically with Starlink (for now at least), as SpaceX seems to be doing things right despite Musk. They're in such low orbits that even with a catastrophic loss of control, they'll deorbit very quickly. The real risk comes as more companies and countries try to get a piece of the megaconstellation pie. Starlink in its own seems to be fairly safe and sustainable on its own, but that may quickly change when communication for collision avoidance maneuvers needs to be international.

Despite Musk's well-earned reputation for being a shithead, SpaceX has this far been doing the right thing far more often than most other space companies, and while it's certainly possible that will change, the Starlink constellation will entirely disappear very quickly without constant replenishment, so it's not as if we'd have no chance to act if they begin to show signs of concerning behavior. What's far more worrying to me in terms of Kessler syndrome is the recent escalation around space warfare, as tensions between Russia, China, and the US continue to boil and nobody seems willing to really commit to making space a neutral zone. Even with space historically being an area of strong international cooperation despite politics (just look at the ISS), that unfortunately seems to be rapidly changing.

Ok, so this is a risk, that changes nothing, we have a choice either we use space or we don’t, if we don’t we gain nothing if we do we gain something, ergo we should use space.

What is the point of looking at the pretty lights in the sky if we have no plans on ever going there? You might as well generate images with Ai.

We're in a new space race.

There are too many rocket companies to list. This commercialization drives down launch costs and increases capacity, which benefits private companies and public research institutions.

There was just a record number of people in orbit (19) that'll get broken again in the coming years. The ISS will get new modules. Tiangong has been expanding. The Lunar Gateway station is under construction. Several private space stations are under construction. And multiple companies and countries are working on new crewed vehicles.