The Astronomical Society of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, Scotland
[Link]
To: Ms Marlene H. Dortch, Secretary,
Federal Communications Commission
45 L Street N.E.
Washington D.C. 20554
by web upload
20 September 2022
Re: SpaceX/Starlink Gen 2 proposal
IBFS File No. SAT-LOA-202000526-00055
IBFS File No. SAT-AMD-20210818-00105
Dear Ms Dortch
I am writing to ask that you pause the above applications to save our night skies and our
access to space. The Astronomical Society of Edinburgh is an amateur astronomical group
of 179 members who thrive on experiencing the beauty of the night sky and our Universe.
We are at risk of losing that.
● Please pause the next set until proper investigations have been completed
● 30,000 extra satellites would make the night skies totally unusable
● Too much of our natural heritage and beauty of the night sky will be lost
● We must learn lessons from the damage we have done to the planet and not do the
same to the skies and Earth’s orbit
Already with only Generation 1 Starlink satellites in orbit, the night skies have become so
littered with satellites that our members are unable to carry out their activities in the same
way they used to, without dodging many artificial bodies or having to remove data corruption
from most frames of the images we take. The night sky has already changed dramatically for
us!
With an additional 30,000 satellites the sky will become very polluted, which will make it very
difficult for professional astronomers to make good use of their expensive telescopes. While
we are not professional astronomers, some of us do contribute to pro-am projects that rely
on data from amateur astronomers. Hunting Outbursting Young Stars (HOYS) is one such
project that investigates star and planet formation using data provided by amateurs like
ourselves. More satellites will only make it harder to gather quality data.
The Astronomical Society of Edinburgh [Link]
A number of our members have meteor cameras that contribute data to the Global Meteor
Network and UK Meteor Network. Here’s an example showing a stack of a night of captures
during the early part of the Perseids meteor shower this year.
Image by Tosh White, Edinburgh
While some meteors are detected, we capture far more satellites than meteors and it is often
difficult to distinguish between the two and accurately work out meteor detections and orbital
data. More satellites will only make this harder. These cameras contribute to projects aimed
at keeping humans and satellites safe in space, as well as other research projects.
During the recent Perseid meteor shower, my camera caught the brightest fireball from the
UK. Here’s a video showing it. Just look at the number of satellites that pass through the
field of view after the event. Incredible!
The Astronomical Society of Edinburgh [Link]
Data from the UK Meteor Network
[Link]
32_145_0203264_101_pipp.mp4
Many of our members are keen astrophotographers who take beautiful images of
astronomical objects. They will typically take a number of frames over a period of several
hours, a large number of which are now corrupted with satellite trails. It used to be that only
the occasional frame was damaged, now it is the opposite. While there are methods to help
reduce these trails in the final image, it is not ideal nor reasonable that we should have to
remove trails from so many frames, and many frames still have to be discarded. We are able
to take images down to magnitude 18, even from city locations, so all Starlink satellites are
readily detected.
With clear, dark skies at a premium for us here in Scotland, anything that reduces the quality
of the data we do capture reduces the amount of time we are able to image astronomical
objects. But fundamentally, we just want to see the Universe in all its grandeur and that is no
longer possible without looking past a hail of satellites.
Access to the natural beauty of the night sky must surely be a basic human right. We want to
show it to our children and the people around us, to enable them to experience it as we have
for thousands of years while preserving it for future generations. What right has a small
number of companies to take that away - to actually steal it from us? We have seen how
putting big company profits before nature has contributed to destroying too many parts of our
planet; let’s learn the lessons from that and not do the same to the night sky and Earth’s
orbit!
While broadband-for-all is a worthy ambition, there are other ways this could be achieved
without destroying an important natural resource. In years to come we will regret what we do
today if we don’t pause and think again.
We strongly urge you to allow this to go no further and wait for full and detailed studies into
the impact and long term effects, as well as the legal implications.
Yours sincerely
Mark Phillips
President
The Astronomical Society of Edinburgh
The Astronomical Society of Edinburgh [Link]
