Mitigation of LEO Satellite Brightness and Trail Effects on the Rubin Observatory LSST. (arXiv:2006.12417v2 [astro-ph.IM] UPDATED)
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Tyson_J/0/1/0/all/0/1">J. Anthony Tyson</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Ivezic_Z/0/1/0/all/0/1">Željko Ivezić</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Bradshaw_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">Andrew Bradshaw</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Rawls_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">Meredith L. Rawls</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Xin_B/0/1/0/all/0/1">Bo Xin</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Yoachim_P/0/1/0/all/0/1">Peter Yoachim</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Parejko_J/0/1/0/all/0/1">John Parejko</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Greene_J/0/1/0/all/0/1">Jared Greene</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Sholl_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">Michael Sholl</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Abbott_T/0/1/0/all/0/1">Timothy M. C. Abbott</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Polin_D/0/1/0/all/0/1">Daniel Polin</a>
We report studies on mitigation of optical effects of bright Low-Earth-Orbit
(LEO) satellites on Vera C. Rubin Observatory and its Legacy Survey of Space
and Time (LSST). These include options for pointing the telescope to avoid
satellites, laboratory investigations of bright trails on the Rubin Observatory
LSST Camera sensors, algorithms for correcting image artifacts caused by bright
trails, experiments on darkening SpaceX Starlink satellites, and ground-based
follow-up observations. The original Starlink v0.9 satellites are g ~ 4.5 mag,
and an initial experiment “DarkSat” is g ~ 6.1 mag. Future Starlink darkening
plans may reach g ~ 7 mag, a brightness level that enables non-linear image
artifact correction to well below background noise. However, the satellite
trails will still exist at S/N ~ 100, generating systematic errors that may
impact data analysis and limiting some science. For Rubin Observatory’s 8.4-m
mirror and a satellite at 550 km, the trail FWHM is about 3 arcsec, due to an
out-of-focus effect, which helps avoid saturation by decreasing the trail’s
peak surface brightness. For 48,000 LEOsats of apparent magnitude 4.5, about 1%
of pixels in LSST nautical twilight images would need to be masked.
We report studies on mitigation of optical effects of bright Low-Earth-Orbit
(LEO) satellites on Vera C. Rubin Observatory and its Legacy Survey of Space
and Time (LSST). These include options for pointing the telescope to avoid
satellites, laboratory investigations of bright trails on the Rubin Observatory
LSST Camera sensors, algorithms for correcting image artifacts caused by bright
trails, experiments on darkening SpaceX Starlink satellites, and ground-based
follow-up observations. The original Starlink v0.9 satellites are g ~ 4.5 mag,
and an initial experiment “DarkSat” is g ~ 6.1 mag. Future Starlink darkening
plans may reach g ~ 7 mag, a brightness level that enables non-linear image
artifact correction to well below background noise. However, the satellite
trails will still exist at S/N ~ 100, generating systematic errors that may
impact data analysis and limiting some science. For Rubin Observatory’s 8.4-m
mirror and a satellite at 550 km, the trail FWHM is about 3 arcsec, due to an
out-of-focus effect, which helps avoid saturation by decreasing the trail’s
peak surface brightness. For 48,000 LEOsats of apparent magnitude 4.5, about 1%
of pixels in LSST nautical twilight images would need to be masked.
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