OT: starlink satellites

[grawk]

I'm trying starlink out at home. I don't have a good spot to locate the dish so far, but the 40% of the time I have signal, it's amazing. It's 20ms ping times and 200MB down 50MB up

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Black Dog

I am the one complaining and I do use those services. The vast vast majority of satellites are in high or geostationary orbits. Starlink is a huge constellation in a lower orbit and are highly visible after sunset and before sunrise. It’s not always an all or nothing position, things are nuanced.

So yer upset by a thing in the sky that looks like a star or planet, but is moving?
But the billions of visible stars and planets..they are OK?

[Black Dog]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

So yer upset by a thing in the sky that looks like a star or planet, but is moving?
But the billions of visible stars and planets..they are OK?

I am not losing any sleep over this. I am not opposed to the sats. I use GPS, and have a sat phone. I truly appreciate having nav and comms in remote places. It is a modern wonder. I watch the sky and usually look for the ISS at night when I let my dog out for his before bed pee. I was just lamenting the loss of the uninterrupted sky by moving human made objects. If I was an astronomer I would probably be more upset due to the disruption of my observational research. Law of unintended consequences and all that. On my scale of upset....maybe a 1.3/10.

[coffeecherrypie]

Originally Posted by Black Dog

I am not losing any sleep over this. I am not opposed to the sats. I use GPS, and have a sat phone. I truly appreciate having nav and comms in remote places. It is a modern wonder. I watch the sky and usually look for the ISS at night when I let my dog out for his before bed pee. I was just lamenting the loss of the uninterrupted sky by moving human made objects. If I was an astronomer I would probably be more upset due to the disruption of my observational research. Law of unintended consequences and all that. On my scale of upset....maybe a 1.3/10.

Again...the thing we are talking about is temporary. These Starlink satellites are on their way to their final orbit where they won't look like a bright train of dots all in a line.

[tcbc]

The Starlink satellites and similar low Earth constellations do pose an increasingly serious problem for astronomical observations from the ground. This article makes a good case that international coordination is urgently needed:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-01238-3

It will be challenging on many fronts.

Originally Posted by coffeecherrypie

Again...the thing we are talking about is temporary. These Starlink satellites are on their way to their final orbit where they won't look like a bright train of dots all in a line.

[ORMojo]

Originally Posted by BobbyJones

Kinda Cool and kind of creepy all at the same time.

Who woulda thought there are 1,500 of them up there.

Just the beginning, the plan is for 12,000 at full deployment, more than doubling the amount of all human-made objects currently in orbit.

[jtakeda]

Originally Posted by grawk

I'm trying starlink out at home. I don't have a good spot to locate the dish so far, but the 40% of the time I have signal, it's amazing. It's 20ms ping times and 200MB down 50MB up

That’s a crazy speed. We really don’t need Internet that fast and it’s $100/mo?!?!

[ojingoh]

Oh Starlink is amazing, not gonna push back on that. I live in a metro area and I'm thinking about getting it.

That said it's a disaster for astronomers, casual and pro. Musky met with some astronomers and said they would look into painting them darker, but good luck with that, all the really dark stuff is carbon nanotube based, so it sucks for EM permissibility.

[Black Dog]

Originally Posted by coffeecherrypie

Again...the thing we are talking about is temporary. These Starlink satellites are on their way to their final orbit where they won't look like a bright train of dots all in a line.

That is good to know. Thank you.

Originally Posted by tcbc

The Starlink satellites and similar low Earth constellations do pose an increasingly serious problem for astronomical observations from the ground. This article makes a good case that international coordination is urgently needed:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-01238-3

It will be challenging on many fronts.

This goes back to my position on the law of unintended consequences.

[bigbill]

I live in a rural area and have Starlink. My only option was a dish that maxed out at 13Mbs. With Starlink, I get 175Mbs download, 65Mbs upload, and 20msec. I live in an area with no artificial light and have an incredible view of the night sky. I sit outside every night and look at the Milky Way. I can only see the satellites if I look at a certain portion of the sky and even then, there are so many stars that greatly outshine them.