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This thread is a reminder that astronomers (amateur and professional) watch the stuff that’s watching us, if only to keep it from messing up all our space photos
It occasionally comes up in astronomy coffee chats that the US has several additional Hubble-equivalent space telescopes; it’s just that they’re all looking down
In 2012, the National Reconnaissance Office called up NASA and was like “hey we have a couple of giant space telescopes we haven’t used that are obsolete for us now; you want them?” One of those is becoming @NASAWFIRST, which will be a bit like Hubble but with a much wider view
(And, you know. Those are the ones that were already outdated in 2012.)
In my moments of sentimentality I wonder how different our world could be if all our exquisite high-tech space telescopes were pointed up instead of down
