Colter Mccorkindale’s comment is the best part.
“Sooo....the stars at night really are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas?”
I would never have thought of this, but it is really cool. Living in the city with light pollution, we can see a dozen or so on the best nights.
What an ingenious business idea.
We need more of this. Thanks for making the world more awesome!
Not, in fact, optical interferometry :(
sadly won't be possible for anything serious next decade as each space trillionaire and country launches their own 10,000+ constellations
sky will be constantly twinkling, will be weird
we'll have to switch to space telescopes above LEO
You misunderstand the issue. It’s a significant problem for some kinds of observations and largely irrelevant to others.
Satellites don’t include light sources and there’s nothing to illuminate them when in earth’s shadow. In order to interfere with light based astronomy they need to be outside of earths shadow and someone needs to be actively taking a picture of that chunk of sky. As these satellites orbit eye close to earth almost the entire sky is clear near solar midnight.
Major ground based telescopes can also add a shutter to block light detection for the fraction of a second a satellite would interfere. Basically at extreme magnification you’re looking at an ever smaller percentage of the sky which means the odds of a satellite, even one of millions, being in the shot for a given second is low. It’s still an issue, but being 99.X% as effective is good enough not to be a major concern.
Where it’s a concern is whole sky observation where you can’t easily add a shutter and losing a significant portion of the sky every night is a real problem.
I’m seeking funding to open up a rail gun ranch where you can sit in your lawn chair and blow satellites out of the sky.
Probably legal in Texas? If it's directly over "your land?"
If your application says it is meant to hunt feral hogs, then they will allow it.
Feral hogs IN SPAAAAACE!
Kessler‘s farm?
I'm thinking of "space roombas" that glide around and bump all the sats in LEO into the atmosphere like a game of pool
Only problem is they are toxic as they burn up and create a lot of pollution
* https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...
(too bad gravity is impossible to overcome cheaply or do the opposite and yeet into sun)