Mitigation of LEO Satellite Brightness and Trail Effects on the Rubin Observatory LSST

We report studies on the 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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astronomical journal 2020-11, Vol.160 (5), p.226
Main Authors: Tyson, J. Anthony, Ivezi, eljko, Bradshaw, Andrew, Rawls, Meredith L., Xin, Bo, Yoachim, Peter, Parejko, John, Greene, Jared, Sholl, Michael, Abbott, Timothy M. C., Polin, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Artificial satellites
Astronomical techniques
Astronomy
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Astronomy data acquisition
Astronomy data analysis
Astronomy data reduction
Background noise
CCD observation
CCD photometry
Darkening
Data analysis
Field of view
Ground-based observation
Impact analysis
Low earth orbits
Mitigation
Observational astronomy
Observatories
Photometry
Satellite constellations
Satellite observation
Satellites
Signal to noise ratio
Sky surveys
Surface brightness
Systematic errors
Trails
Twilight
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Summary:We report studies on the 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 the initial experiment "DarkSat" is g ∼ 6.1 mag. Future Starlink darkening plans may reach g ∼ 7 mag, a brightness level that enables nonlinear image artifact correction to well below background noise. However, the satellite trails will still exist at a signal-to-noise ratio ∼ 100, generating systematic errors that may impact data analysis and limit some science. For the Rubin Observatory 8.4 m mirror and a satellite at 550 km, the full width at half maximum of the trail is about 3″ as the result of an out-of-focus effect, which helps avoid saturation by decreasing the peak surface brightness of the trail. For 48,000 LEOsats of apparent magnitude 4.5, about 1% of pixels in LSST nautical twilight images would need to be masked.
ISSN:0004-6256
1538-3881
1538-3881
DOI:10.3847/1538-3881/abba3e