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Telescope Ranchers

42 points - last Tuesday at 10:34 AM

Source
  • jimmy76615

    today at 6:24 PM

    Really great idea! But one still has to buy a telescope and send it to this guy, I think it would be cool if one could just rent everything at once. For non-serious people that have a lot of money that they would like to put to use looking at the stars. Or maybe a time-share like concept.

    • mattlondon

      today at 6:19 PM

      > from as little as 99 USD a month

      > 550 telescopes

      So about ~55 to 60k USD a month to just have some telescopes on your land? Nice little earner.

      • elictronic

        today at 5:49 PM

        Colter Mccorkindale’s comment is the best part.

        ā€œSooo....the stars at night really are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas?ā€

        • solomonneas

          today at 5:27 PM

          I would never have thought of this, but it is really cool. Living in the city with light pollution, we can see a dozen or so on the best nights.

          What an ingenious business idea.

          • jmward01

            today at 5:15 PM

            We need more of this. Thanks for making the world more awesome!

            • genpfault

              today at 5:05 PM

              Not, in fact, optical interferometry :(

              • ck2

                today at 5:10 PM

                sadly won't be possible for anything serious next decade as each space trillionaire and country launches their own 10,000+ constellations

                sky will be constantly twinkling, will be weird

                we'll have to switch to space telescopes above LEO

                https://satellitemap.space

                  • Retric

                    today at 5:54 PM

                    You misunderstand the issue. It’s a significant problem for some kinds of observations and largely irrelevant to others.

                    Satellites don’t include light sources and there’s nothing to illuminate them when in earth’s shadow. In order to interfere with light based astronomy they need to be outside of earths shadow and someone needs to be actively taking a picture of that chunk of sky. As these satellites orbit eye close to earth almost the entire sky is clear near solar midnight.

                    Major ground based telescopes can also add a shutter to block light detection for the fraction of a second a satellite would interfere. Basically at extreme magnification you’re looking at an ever smaller percentage of the sky which means the odds of a satellite, even one of millions, being in the shot for a given second is low. It’s still an issue, but being 99.X% as effective is good enough not to be a major concern.

                    Where it’s a concern is whole sky observation where you can’t easily add a shutter and losing a significant portion of the sky every night is a real problem.

                    • zippyman55

                      today at 5:15 PM

                      I’m seeking funding to open up a rail gun ranch where you can sit in your lawn chair and blow satellites out of the sky.

                        • tedd4u

                          today at 5:17 PM

                          Probably legal in Texas? If it's directly over "your land?"

                            • dylan604

                              today at 5:54 PM

                              If your application says it is meant to hunt feral hogs, then they will allow it.

                                • throwup238

                                  today at 5:57 PM

                                  Feral hogs IN SPAAAAACE!

                          • adrianN

                            today at 5:22 PM

                            Kesslerā€˜s farm?

                            • ck2

                              today at 5:20 PM

                              I'm thinking of "space roombas" that glide around and bump all the sats in LEO into the atmosphere like a game of pool

                              Only problem is they are toxic as they burn up and create a lot of pollution

                              * https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...

                              (too bad gravity is impossible to overcome cheaply or do the opposite and yeet into sun)