I doubt SAM sites could bring down satellites, they have enough trouble even spotting something as big as an F35 in the atmosphere.
I am just so grateful that I have extensive libraries from my dark observatory, and frankly have already imaged most of what I wanted to over the last twenty years, and have It all archived. I would be pretty peeved if I was a young guy just starting out.
I think back to what James Dunlop would think of the situation we find ourselves in today.
His catalog of the dark skies of the Southern hemisphere formed the bible of Southern Celestial objects. Mr Dunlop worked from Parramatta NSW in the 1800s. If anyone has been to Parramatta recently, you would be hard pressed to see a single bright star in the sky glow generated by the high rise towers. A quick glance at the global light pollution map would suggest that Australia still has significant dark sky areas, but you need to get a long way away from population centres, LED street lights, etc to appreciate the dark.. Sadly fewer members here seem to make the journey, Star parties are dying out, informal dark site trips are no longer organised, and the ever stalwart members who made the treks regularly, are now getting to old to make the trips.
I can only encourage members here to get out there, before the Chinese can start putting these 14,000 objects, with the big shiny sails, between you and the stars.
