Originally Posted by eburacum45

A transparent satellite sort of defeats the object of a Dyson swarm, which is to collect photons and use the energy. But a very large dyson swarm or sphere would radiate at the same temperature as the cosmic ray background, making it practically invisible; otherwise it could just disguise itself as a dust cloud, and appear natural.

Hmm; perhaps it is an aesthetic choice- just as some cell phone masts are disguised as trees for aesthetic reasons, perhaps some dyson swarms are disguised as dust clouds so as not to spoil the scenery.