The hard part came next. Larsen spent about 45 hours layering the individual photos – each of which contained about 25 satellites – over one another, using Adobe Photoshop. Much of the time was spent painstakingly erasing stars, to reveal the satellites.
This is less an "image of our satellite-choked night skies" and more "a completely mendacious image produced using Photoshop".
Actually, this is pretty common for non-scientific astrophotography! Erase Stars -> Edit background and stars colour, contrast etc separately -> Recombine!
Almost any astronomy processing software does this for free, because when you stack a whole load of images it rejects outlier pixels (e.g. a trail present on only one image out of hundreds).
It then usually gives you an image of both the combined success, and an image of just those pixels that were rejected. So, this.
You are being uncharitable. There is nothing misleading about this, or any other, nightsky timeseries image. It claims to show the paths of satellites over 2 hours, and that's what it does. You have to edit things like this to reveal the signal and keep relatively constant elements from overwhelming the result. Astronomers do this exact same thing (erasing things that obscure the subject over time).
I have no problem with the image and it illustrates a real phenomena. There is something slightly misleading about it though: if you point a camera in the same direction for 2 hours, take many images and then layer the images you wouldn't have a static star background like is shown here. You'd only get that star background if you used a star tracker and kept pointing at the same place in the night sky but then the foreground would be changing.
I don't understand. Are you laboring under the impression that the artist is trying to convince people that this is what the night sky looks like at any given moment? What even are you upset about?
The photographer was more than transparent about how the image was produced and what it means.. how you manage to color this as dishonest is beyond me.
A lot of people are going to look at that manually edited image, think it's a traditional long-exposure photo, and conclude that satellites are much more of a problem for astronomy than they really are.
Its parameters are very well described and the result is beautiful (visually), interesting, and provocative. Yes, people will misinterpret all sorts of things like this, but I don't know what else the author could have done besides not create it at all, for fear of... these accusations?
To whom would they pay 'rent'? What would be done with the money?
Don't go there, it leads to nothing but more waste, abuse and corruption. If it becomes necessary there can be some form of arbitrage in how LEO is used, we're not there yet though. Maybe something like the auctions for bandwidth for mobile operators but again, where does the money go? If institutionalised it will just turn into another slush fund for whatever interests, many of them corrupt or nonsensical, to drain.
It is a bit ridiculous these days and it's only going to get worse with basically every major country needing to do a version of this for defence purposes.
Go out tonight and just look at the sky for 5 mins and I'll guarantee you'll see a couple of satellites flying past.
As with a lot of other technologies, the genie is out of the bottle and I don't think we're putting him back there again, this is the future.
The hard part came next. Larsen spent about 45 hours layering the individual photos – each of which contained about 25 satellites – over one another, using Adobe Photoshop. Much of the time was spent painstakingly erasing stars, to reveal the satellites.
This is less an "image of our satellite-choked night skies" and more "a completely mendacious image produced using Photoshop".
It did say he was a photographer, not an astronomer.
Surely an astronomer would have software for this that would produce a more accurate picture.
An astronomer would presumably not erase the stars.
Actually, this is pretty common for non-scientific astrophotography! Erase Stars -> Edit background and stars colour, contrast etc separately -> Recombine!
Almost any astronomy processing software does this for free, because when you stack a whole load of images it rejects outlier pixels (e.g. a trail present on only one image out of hundreds).
It then usually gives you an image of both the combined success, and an image of just those pixels that were rejected. So, this.
Has he not heard of AI?
The point of the image is to make a point. Art is provocative. Our skies are choked as anyone who makes Astro images will tell you.
I really like the photo and what it represents. We're growing as a civilization and I think that's beautiful.
It’s called art.
You are being uncharitable. There is nothing misleading about this, or any other, nightsky timeseries image. It claims to show the paths of satellites over 2 hours, and that's what it does. You have to edit things like this to reveal the signal and keep relatively constant elements from overwhelming the result. Astronomers do this exact same thing (erasing things that obscure the subject over time).
I have no problem with the image and it illustrates a real phenomena. There is something slightly misleading about it though: if you point a camera in the same direction for 2 hours, take many images and then layer the images you wouldn't have a static star background like is shown here. You'd only get that star background if you used a star tracker and kept pointing at the same place in the night sky but then the foreground would be changing.
The image itself is interesting, but the context in which it’s presented in this article is dishonest.
The headline is the worst offender, saying that the skies are “choked” with satellites.
The headline is misleading. The photo alone is interesting with the right context.
I don't understand. Are you laboring under the impression that the artist is trying to convince people that this is what the night sky looks like at any given moment? What even are you upset about?
The photographer was more than transparent about how the image was produced and what it means.. how you manage to color this as dishonest is beyond me.
A lot of people are going to look at that manually edited image, think it's a traditional long-exposure photo, and conclude that satellites are much more of a problem for astronomy than they really are.
Its parameters are very well described and the result is beautiful (visually), interesting, and provocative. Yes, people will misinterpret all sorts of things like this, but I don't know what else the author could have done besides not create it at all, for fear of... these accusations?
I remember when this was more of a theoretical problem :( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24128726 compare when i made that comment in 2020 https://satellitemap.space/s/8Tu9xcHa
with now https://satellitemap.space/s/R4YUwDQn
It looks like low earth orbit is a limited resource. Is it?
If so, do Starlink and others pay rent? Should they (to ensure efficient use of the resource)?
To whom would they pay 'rent'? What would be done with the money?
Don't go there, it leads to nothing but more waste, abuse and corruption. If it becomes necessary there can be some form of arbitrage in how LEO is used, we're not there yet though. Maybe something like the auctions for bandwidth for mobile operators but again, where does the money go? If institutionalised it will just turn into another slush fund for whatever interests, many of them corrupt or nonsensical, to drain.
It is a bit ridiculous these days and it's only going to get worse with basically every major country needing to do a version of this for defence purposes.
Go out tonight and just look at the sky for 5 mins and I'll guarantee you'll see a couple of satellites flying past.
As with a lot of other technologies, the genie is out of the bottle and I don't think we're putting him back there again, this is the future.
it seems fairly evenly distributed besides the aggregation in the middle, what orbit would that be? why are there so many satellites there?
Looks like some of the first 8-bit Moiré pattern demos.
Makes perfect sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern
* https://www.instagram.com/p/Dei4FQ0HSt-
* https://satellitemap.space
* https://platform.leolabs.space/visualization