Klyith posted:

I think this would produce a prettier picture for people to look at, but ruin it for astronomy.

#1 the ever so slight imperfections in the image that happen because the main mirror isn't a platonic parabola but a bunch of hexagons, those would also get differenced. I think that would make blurring or distortion to everything away from the center of the picture.

#2 The double set of spikes would still contaminate data on things that astronomers care about. So now you'd have twice as much area near the big stars that is inaccurate spectrum or whatever.


And even if you could do the re-point without using fuel, it would still be wear and tear on the gyro wheels. This thing's life is gonna be primarily limited by how much it has to maneuver. Plus it would take probably 10 times longer per photo, because maneuvering a spacecraft is slooooow.