Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
Awesome holiday Gary and wonderful photos very envious. I experienced some exceptional dark skies 3hrs west of Cairns at 17deg South, back at the start of Sept last year and while I wasn't 1/2 way up into t he stratosphere like you we're, it was the first time I had seen the full, zodiacal light, zodical bridge and geguanshein right across the sky from horizon to horizon, spectacular  One question, did the potential detrimental effect of Starlink satellites and other similar planned networks come up in you discussions with any in the professional astronomical community?
Mike |
Thanks Mike,
The ready appearance of zodiacal light and gegenschein are indeed
excellent metrics for the merit of a dark sky site.
I hope you get the chance to visit Mauna Kea some day. The transparency
is absolutely stunning.
Our primary contacts were with some of the Keck personnel such as
the main mirror lab technician, the head electrical engineer and a staff
astronomer who works with the infrared instrumentation. There was
some brief discussion of Starlink but the main focus of astronomy
politics there is the future of observation on Mauna Kea itself.
Native Hawaiians regard the mountain as sacred and aren't just
opposed to the construction of the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT)
but all of the observatories up there at present.
The TMT is a US$1.4 billion project and if it does not get built there,
it will be built somewhere else in the world such as the Canary Islands.
However, Manua Kea is regarded as the ideal place.
Currently the TMT has a state supreme court ruling upholding its
construction permit and another state supreme court ruling upholding
the University of Hawaii's sub-lease on the land for the construction site.
Now the battle is shifting to the University of Hawaii's master lease which
covers all the land for all the observatories including Subaru, the Kecks
and Gemini North telescopes.
But the protests go much deeper than just the telescopes and can be traced
back to 1893 when the Hawaiian Kingdom was overthrown.
If you go into a supermarket in Hawaii and for that matter anywhere in
the continental United States. most pineapples and bananas are supplied
by the giant Dole food company. Sanford Dole, of the then Hawaiian
Pineapple Company, led a coup with the help of the American government
over the ruling monarchy back in the 1890's and Hawaiians lost both
their land and much of their culture.
I sense that the protests are largely about that and the telescopes make an easy target.