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BU508A wrote: ↑Tue Jun 24, 2025 8:57 am
Remove starlink trails:
I'd say, take some pictures shortly after, combine them and remove the starlink patterns.
Perhaps a similar approach would work for finding interesting objects.
tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jun 24, 2025 8:12 am
I'm having difficulty understanding how you can find/select the interesting objects to examine. So many pixels, and interesting objects are often only a few pixels in size.
If you take the guided tour, you eventually end up with RGB pictures of meteor trails
The colorful streaks in this image are asteroids — the streaks record their movement across the sky from left to right. This image is a combination of multiple observations taken with four different filters. The asteroid moves between each observation, and each filter is assigned a different color in the composite image, resulting in the asteroids' multicolored paths.
Typically, in a deep image like this one, scientists carefully remove moving objects so they don’t impede the study of static objects. We chose to leave them in this image so you can see Rubin’s dynamic view of the sky!
"Time on telescope" is a scarce resource, so I imagine people will be reluctant to take the same picture multiple times. But what do I know.
Since it's a publicity splash for a brand new prestige telescope, and they definitely wouldn't want to show a picture with a satellite track across it, or any other sort of blemish, I venture that the scarcity of "Time on telescope" wouldn't enter their heads.
"Time on telescope" is a scarce resource, so I imagine people will be reluctant to take the same picture multiple times. But what do I know.
Since it's a publicity splash for a brand new prestige telescope, and they definitely wouldn't want to show a picture with a satellite track across it, or any other sort of blemish, I venture that the scarcity of "Time on telescope" wouldn't enter their heads.
For a publicity splash, I agree.
For Real Work (TM), there will be satellite tracks, and scope time is fought over by researchers and institutions.
For amusement, here it is with asteroids and after asteroids are removed. I suppose the fact that they can remove asteriods indicates they can remove satellite tracks, but the satellite tracks will be much larger and brighter.
Screenshot_2025-06-24_19-08-17.jpg
Screenshot_2025-06-24_19-09-39.jpg
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Satellites are well tracked as is space junk. Commercial airliners also usually fly on predictable paths. Military aircraft are a different, but much rarer problem. It can't be all that difficult to manage time on the telescope to accommodate these things. Anyway, large numbers of satellites have been around for at least 30 years. It must be a problem that operators of large telescopes have learned to live with. I don't believe that at first light, the leaders of the Vera C Rubin Telescope project said, "Oh shit!. It works pretty well, but the images are messed up with satellite tracks, meteor trails and passing UFOs. We didn't think about that".
Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jun 24, 2025 8:09 pm
Satellites are well tracked as is space junk. Commercial airliners also usually fly on predictable paths. Military aircraft are a different, but much rarer problem. It can't be all that difficult to manage time on the telescope to accommodate these things. Anyway, large numbers of satellites have been around for at least 30 years. It must be a problem that operators of large telescopes have learned to live with. I don't believe that at first light, the leaders of the Vera C Rubin Telescope project said, "Oh shit!. It works pretty well, but the images are messed up with satellite tracks, meteor trails and passing UFOs. We didn't think about that".
Well...yes.
OTOH the astronomers have been complaining about Starlink. What I don't know is the extent to which they do/don't have a problem.
They did move to a pretty inhospitable place (Cerro Pachón in Chile) to avoid atmosphere, humidity, and lights. They are still missing atmosphere, but now there are lots of sometimes very bright lights in the sky.