surely one of the side-effects of a Dyson sphere, for instance, would be to render the star almost undetectable to our telescopes.
No. A Dyson sphere would just emit a lot less radiation in the region that we happen to perceive as "visible". This is a special case of "Stealth is (close to) impossible in Space"
No. A Dyson sphere would just emit a lot less radiation in the region that we happen to perceive as "visible". This is a special case of "Stealth is (close to) impossible in Space"
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacewardetect.php
http://scienceblogs.com/builtonfacts/2010/03/while_doing_som...
http://scienceblogs.com/builtonfacts/2010/03/stealth_in_spac...
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StealthInSpace