[barondla]

A lot of you are using medium format to capture the night sky and star trails. Just wondering if all these new satellites are causing any problems. I've noticed daytime landscape photography has been easier without all the airplane contrails.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/6135236887/astronomers-warn-spacex-starlink-sa...-and-discovery

Thanks,
barondla

---

Last edited by barondla; 09-04-2020 at 07:58 AM. Reason: Forgot the link.

[Lord Lucan]

I don't know, but so I have heard through other forums. But whatever, it amazes me that one private company, led by a megalomaniac of questionable mental stability in this case, is allowed to put all that junk up there without some kind of international agreement to it. Does the United Nations have anything to say about it?

[AstroDave]

Does the United Nations have anything to say about it?

Not much. As far as I know, satellite launch permissions are generally granted by the country of origin.

While there are international treaties & agreements on radio transmissions from satellites, there are no such rules about optical appearances.

And these satellites are indeed a nuisance. I spent many evenings shooting comet Neowise, and I would say that about a quarter of my frames have Starlink trails in them. It is hard to imagine what 10-20 times as many satellites will do to wide angle imaging!

/Flame on/ As with nearly all polluters, they pay practically no price for what they do to everybody else. /Flame off/

[MaineNative]

What really bothers me is that the satellite trails often don’t show up on the rear display. It is easy to see if a plane flew through your long exposure so you can try again, but some of the satellite trails are faint and only about 1-2 pixels wide. They look like a scratch on your printouts, they you zoom in and discover them.

[nightfly]

A simple 60 second exposure with a DSLR and any lens under dark skies finds several satellite trails. They are annoying in post processing where they generally rear their heads. My long exposure 67 photos of the milky way seldom had trails due to longer integration times and less sensitivity of emulsion sensors.

[tuco]

If you think it's bad now, wait until that stuff starts colliding into each other.

[Silent Street]

If you think it's bad now, wait until that stuff starts colliding into each other.

Hmm. I would be upset if one of more of the damned things came crashing down through my glasshouse where I keep my vegies... If that happens, we can all send a fine to Elon Musk for littering!!

[StiffLegged]

Space isn’t regulated, so Musk can scatter his crap however he likes. Once the world’s governments reach full agreement this will be brought under control and your greenhouses will be fully protected, but don’t hold yer breath...

[Serkevan]

Space isn’t regulated, so Musk can scatter his crap however he likes. Once the world’s governments reach full agreement this will be brought under control and your greenhouses will be fully protected, but don’t hold yer breath...

We all know that the only way the US won't veto any attempt to curtail Tesla is for China/Russia to say "We are going to make our own network".

For what it's worth, I've had a couple night shots showing a satellite or two. And they only show after stacking, can't plan around them on site!

[ProfessorBuzz]

To answer the question: Yes. Startlink satelites are everywhere, and thery are ruining our night skies.
I tried shooting Comet Neowise from mid July to mid August with my 645Z. Anything wider than a 100mm shot came out with satellite trials. It never used to be this bad.
Wide field constellation shots would have 2-4 of these things, and the 35mm would give me a bunch. It's awful.
Professional astronomers are pretty upset.

[gaweidert]

Space isn’t regulated, so Musk can scatter his crap however he likes. Once the world’s governments reach full agreement this will be brought under control and your greenhouses will be fully protected, but don’t hold yer breath...

They need to track everyone every minute of he day. Real simple why it is being allowed. This helps the process. Pretty soon no place for you to go without some sort of cell phone and internet coverage. So nuisance calls and pumped in advertising for everyone no matter where you are.


I have often wondered whose body was in the car that Elon launched into space. Tin foil hat now on.

[whwang]

Sorry to hear the couple of stories on NEOWISE image ruined by the satellites. But generally speaking, the starlink satellites are low-orbit satellites. They only reflect sun light during the one hour or two (depending on where you are) of evening/morning twilight time. After we are well into the dark, we won't see them easily, because the satellites above us should be also hidden from the sun by earth.

For professional astronomy, the starlink satellites mainly threaten the observations that search for near-earth objects. Those objects can only be easily seen during twilight time. For typical astronomical observations conducted during dark time, starlink can sometimes be annoying, but won't be the end of the world nor end of astronomy.

I think the above applies to amateur astrophotography too. For the kind of astrophotography conducted during twilight (astro landscape, and comet imaging), starlink will be a problem. For other kinds of astrophotography conducted at night, it shouldn't be a major threat. We see many high-orbit satellites every night anyway, and we have ways to remove them from our images.

[barondla]

Sorry to hear the couple of stories on NEOWISE image ruined by the satellites. But generally speaking, the starlink satellites are low-orbit satellites. They only reflect sun light during the one hour or two (depending on where you are) of evening/morning twilight time. After we are well into the dark, we won't see them easily, because the satellites above us should be also hidden from the sun by earth.

For professional astronomy, the starlink satellites mainly threaten the observations that search for near-earth objects. Those objects can only be easily seen during twilight time. For typical astronomical observations conducted during dark time, starlink can sometimes be annoying, but won't be the end of the world nor end of astronomy.

I think the above applies to amateur astrophotography too. For the kind of astrophotography conducted during twilight (astro landscape, and comet imaging), starlink will be a problem. For other kinds of astrophotography conducted at night, it shouldn't be a major threat. We see many high-orbit satellites every night anyway, and we have ways to remove them from our images.

Thank you for the added info. Glad to hear the satellites won't hamper all ground based astrophotography.

Thanks,
barondla

[maw]

Professional astronomers are pretty upset.

I have often wondered whose body was in the car that Elon launched into space. Tin foil hat now on.

If you think it's bad now, wait until that stuff starts colliding into each other.

If I remember correctly the first satellite launched was Sputnik 1, in the meantime they have multiplied and now we are at 2,666 official satellites,
then there are the undeclared or top secret ones. By the way the documental redistribution is reported in this article.

The satellites in orbit.

We will see the next comet, let us not be alarmed...

Bye Mario

[Lord Lucan]

We will see the next comet, let us not be alarmed...

One thing that has become apparent in recent years is the risk of a meteorite hitting us. We are now conscious of occasional near misses (eg within moon orbit) of ones big enough to cause damage of nuclear bomb magnitude. We need to spot these things far out and be ready to evacuate areas if possible, until such time as we have the tech to nuke them first.

How much are these satellites likely to compromise spotting such meteorites?