Satellites following me around the sky! Who, me, paranoid?

[Swift]

Hiya folks,

I've been getting back into the swing of things this week after years without a scope, and I'm really enjoying the 10" Dob I just picked up and browsing through all the interesting and informative posts on the forum boards. However, during my observations it seems like every other time I point the scope at a DSO, a satellite is bimbling its merry way across the starfield, and they're often glaringly bright on dark-adapted eyes that are straining to see faint nebulous wisps. It's not as if I'm using particularly wide fields, I've mainly been at mid to high power for the globulars and PNs.

There was one particularly harsh instance where I was checking out M82 at 120x power - this was low over Eastbourne in the most light-polluted area of my backyard sky at around 4am, so the galaxy was fairly faint but still appearing somewhat mottled around the centre. I was trying to let my eyes adjust, peering intently at and around the detail when an insanely bright satellite tore across the field. I stepped back, blinking, then went back to the eyepiece. A few seconds later, whoosh - a second, even brighter one ripped across the same track and there was much blinking and swearing.

Bit annoying really, and there have been dozens of other less extreme instances. Just wondered if any of you guys and girls with similar (or larger) sized scopes get this a lot? Should I expect to see satellites scooting around by the minutes now that my instrument is a lot more powerful than I've been used to thus far? I didn't realise that there were so many of them up there, maybe I've just pointed the scope at the wrong places at the wrong times this week!

Cheers, S

[Catanonia]

You should try imaging with 20 min exposures. Hundreds of them

[Swift]

Ouch. Streaks in the eyepiece are one thing, but streaks on your painstaking 20-minute images? That's gotta hurt.

[Smeg]

I see lots of pairs of satellites chasing each other on the same orbit

[Smeg]

Ouch. Streaks in the eyepiece are one thing, but streaks on your painstaking 20-minute images? That's gotta hurt.

Can't you edit them out?

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

Damned space junk

[Smeg]

Damned space junk

Don't worry Canada is America's satellite dumping ground

[Catanonia]

Can't you edit them out?

To a degree you can, but normally have at least 5 or 6 persistant ones especially if in the low down regions such as bodes is at the moment.

[Psychobilly]

If you have enough subs then the statistical "Outlier" rejection stacking methods will take care of them (and the odd passing cloud)

Peter...

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

http://yoursay.footprintfriends.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.SiteFiles/space-junk.jpg

We don't stand a chance

[Mr Spock]

If satellites are following you a tinfoil hat usually helps.

If that doesn't work, try an armadillo...

[cathalferris]

Try looking at something and having a plane on approach to the nearby airport silently cross the field of view, about a second before the sound of jets arrive.. serenely looking at something - see a really blinding flash of a pair of 150W HID lights aimed at you go across the the FOV - jerk away just as the loud noise approaches. Not fun!