"Members of the LSST science team said last month that, assuming the full deployment of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, nearly every exposure from the observatory within two hours of sunset or sunrise would have a satellite streak. During summer months, when twilight times longer, there could be a 40 percent impact on twilight observing time, according to the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, or AURA, which manages the LSST project for the National Science Foundation.
“Because of scattered light in the optics by the bright satellites, the scientific usefulness of an entire exposure can sometimes be negated,” AURA said in a statement last month. “Detection of near-Earth asteroids, normally surveyed for during twilight, would be particularly impacted. Dark energy surveys are also sensitive to the satellites because of streaks caused in the images. Avoiding saturation of streaks is vital.”"
This concern has already been addressed by SpaceX. It's worth noting that LSST is the single telescope most affected by Starlink. Since the article you posted was published, SpaceX met with the LSST people and specifically designed a sunshade to reduce the brightness of Starlink satellites on station below the threshold that will cause saturation problems. https://www.spacex.com/updates/starlink-update-04-28-2020/
They're trying to do a logical OR for all the light that comes in during a long exposure, as in an old film camera with a long shutter time.
That may have worked with analog film before we had satellites, but Starlink is just the latest and brightest addition to the sky that makes that an increasingly bad idea. Change is hard, but it's not that difficult.
Instead, AND a bunch of shorter exposures. Then, your streaks are not streaks, but a series of point sources that can be removed trivially.
And who will pay for all those necessary changes? Keep in mind that this is complex stuff, you don't just hack a perl script and be done with it. Anybody who thinks it's that simple is suffering full-blown Dunning-Kruger.
If I poo in your front yard, would you be happy with me telling you simply "well you can just remove it, what's the big deal?" Or rather, pooing regularly somewhere on a lawn in a public park that you really like and visit daily.
“Because of scattered light in the optics by the bright satellites, the scientific usefulness of an entire exposure can sometimes be negated,” AURA said in a statement last month. “Detection of near-Earth asteroids, normally surveyed for during twilight, would be particularly impacted. Dark energy surveys are also sensitive to the satellites because of streaks caused in the images. Avoiding saturation of streaks is vital.”"
https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/12/09/spacex-to-experiment-w...