A @Nature paper published today argues that "Satellite megaconstellations will threaten space-based astronomy" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09759-5

Here's the punchline of the paper: satellites could be a problem even for orbiting space telescopes, but the impact depends on how many are launched. "Our results show that if these constellations are completed, one-third of the images of the Hubble Space Telescope will be contaminated, while the SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), ARRAKIHS (Analysis of Resolved Remnants of Accreted galaxies as a Key Instrument for Halo Surveys) and Xuntian space telescopes will have more than 96% of +0.3 their exposures affected, with 5.6^+0.3_−0.3, 69^+21_−22, and 92^+11_−10 trails per exposure, respectively, with an average surface brightness of μ = 19 ± 2 mag arcsec−2."

#Astronomy #Satellites #Megaconstellations #SpaceTelescope

A @Nature paper published today argues that "Satellite megaconstellations will threaten space-based astronomy" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09759-5

Here's the punchline of the paper: satellites could be a problem even for orbiting space telescopes, but the impact depends on how many are launched. "Our results show that if these constellations are completed, one-third of the images of the Hubble Space Telescope will be contaminated, while the SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), ARRAKIHS (Analysis of Resolved Remnants of Accreted galaxies as a Key Instrument for Halo Surveys) and Xuntian space telescopes will have more than 96% of +0.3 their exposures affected, with 5.6^+0.3_−0.3, 69^+21_−22, and 92^+11_−10 trails per exposure, respectively, with an average surface brightness of μ = 19 ± 2 mag arcsec−2."

#Astronomy #Satellites #Megaconstellations #SpaceTelescope

Cat's Paw Nebula



This is my attempt at the James Webb Space Telescope data of the Cat's Paw Nebula NGC 6334. Many stars were removed or oversaturated in the filter data downloaded from MAST, resulting in a lot of artifacts in the short- and long-wavelength composite images created with #Siril. I combined both images in #GIMP and tried to fix some of the artifacts. After different tries, also on the raw data, I decided to run #StarNet++ on the combined FITS file created with GIMP and then painstakingly clean the rest (felt like 10000) of the star artifacts up. I tried to stay true to the nebula by interpolating what the area behind and around the stars most likely looks like. GIMP's heal brush worked really well, but it took many hours to complete.



The full-resolution image can be seen on my website when choosing the original size in the upper right corner (warning: it is 77 MB in size): https://www.picturavis.com/picture?/391/categories



Telescope: JWST/NIRCam

Proposal ID: 6778

Observation description: NIRCam observations of a star forming nebula

Release date: 10.07.2025

Filters: F090W (blue), F187N (light blue), F200W (blue-green), F277W (yellow-green), F335M (yellow), F444W-F470N (red)



#CatsPawNebula #NGC6334 #JWST #JamesWebb #NIRCam #Nebula #SpaceTelescope #astrophotography #DeepSky #DigiKam

Cat's Paw Nebula



This is my attempt at the James Webb Space Telescope data of the Cat's Paw Nebula NGC 6334. Many stars were removed or oversaturated in the filter data downloaded from MAST, resulting in a lot of artifacts in the short- and long-wavelength composite images created with #Siril. I combined both images in #GIMP and tried to fix some of the artifacts. After different tries, also on the raw data, I decided to run #StarNet++ on the combined FITS file created with GIMP and then painstakingly clean the rest (felt like 10000) of the star artifacts up. I tried to stay true to the nebula by interpolating what the area behind and around the stars most likely looks like. GIMP's heal brush worked really well, but it took many hours to complete.



The full-resolution image can be seen on my website when choosing the original size in the upper right corner (warning: it is 77 MB in size): https://www.picturavis.com/picture?/391/categories



Telescope: JWST/NIRCam

Proposal ID: 6778

Observation description: NIRCam observations of a star forming nebula

Release date: 10.07.2025

Filters: F090W (blue), F187N (light blue), F200W (blue-green), F277W (yellow-green), F335M (yellow), F444W-F470N (red)



#CatsPawNebula #NGC6334 #JWST #JamesWebb #NIRCam #Nebula #SpaceTelescope #astrophotography #DeepSky #DigiKam