Starlink

[pblackwell]

Here in London I saw them. About 20 in a line coming from south west to north east.

cant believe it so unfair, space isn’t their to ruin!

[parallaxerr]

It's only going to get worse. Makes me sad....

[greealilee]

Slowly one by one  they get more and more apart, just to screw up your nights view/ image. I don't want to fault the guy (Elon) for what he is intended to achieve and will with out a no doubt achieve (don't they all). But please spare a thought about us smeg heads on the pale blue dot looking up, we don't want an intercity 125 screaming through our small window of the night sky.

[John]

Starlink - the plan is to launch 12,000 of them eventually possibly extending to 42,000 .....

[kirkster501]

I think astronomy is over if this lot appear like what we saw tonight.

[parallaxerr]

33 minutes ago, Waddensky said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink

Re: the "criticism" section of this article. At least the IAU have objected the plans, but clearly it has fallen of deaf ears and lip service is being payed to reducing the impact on astronomers.

[John]

They are planning on increasing them to 12,000 in number and possibly even going as far as 42,000.

 

[parallaxerr]

3 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

I think astronomy is over if this lot appear like what we saw tonight.

Imaging certainly will be, but it will badly affect visual observation too. 

I don't know if it's the coronavirus pollution dip, but I've never seen so many satellites as tonight, notwithstanding the Starlinks. I felt giddy looking up at one point, trying to find a reference star and everything was in motion

Edited April 19, 2020 by parallaxerr

[pblackwell]

No no I’ve not seen that ever and I look up every night with my eyes even when clouds while having a cigarette 

[miguel87]

First time I have ever seen them too. Not sure what to think. I dont think they are going to ruin astronomy, there are far more planes passing over and that doesnt ruin astronomy. I guess imagers might dislike them more. I quite enjoyed watching them tonight but I definitely do not want a busy night sky.

[JamesF]

7 minutes ago, miguel87 said:

there are far more planes passing over and that doesnt ruin astronomy.

Well yes, but they have to cram all the planes into narrow corridors otherwise air traffic controllers would be out of a job stopping them from bumping into each other, which means you can go to places where they are relatively easily avoided.

James

[greealilee]

Many many years ago when the first human looked up at the night sky and wondered what those simple yet brilliant dots of white light was and yet many years later discovered that some of these points of lights are actually planets and still yet we have more to see and discover. At what point does firing thousands of sats up in to low orbit help us achieve this.. If anything it fuels our need to dig through the dirt we call earth, the pollution, the global warming and yes pandemic. All I wish if anything, is that we try and keep the night sky clear for all our sake, to me it's our only last unspoilt haven.

[MarkAR]

5 minutes ago, greealilee said:

At what point does firing thousands of sats up in to low orbit help us achieve this.

For all the numpties that want faster phone connections. And greed.

[greealilee]

Greed couldn't buy you toilet roll last week and for phone connection, when was the last time you hugged your loved ones outside your home. Simple things always comes at a cost, even looking up at the stars.

[Ouroboros]

When these satellites are all launched will last night's dreadful  cavalcade of lights be visible all night, every night and in all parts of the sky? 

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Ouroboros said:

When these satellites are all launched will last night's dreadful  cavalcade of lights be visible all night, every night and in all parts of the sky? 

I had a somewhat lively debate on FB about these. I’m told they will be in low enough orbits that they will only be visible a couple of hours after sunset and before dawn. We shall see, I suspect they will still be quite distracting.

[miguel87]

1 hour ago, Ouroboros said:

When these satellites are all launched will last night's dreadful  cavalcade of lights be visible all night, every night and in all parts of the sky? 

No

[nitram100]

It's all worth it in the end so that people can access facebook and instagram all over the world. 😒

[jetstream]

10 minutes ago, nitram100 said:

It's all worth it in the end so that people can access facebook and instagram all over the world. 😒

It might be a means to an end- for going to Mars?

 

[tingting44]

On 19/04/2020 at 21:40, parallaxerr said:

This lot is showing up in Stellarium

 

EDIT: I don't think these are the Starlink satellites. They are still showing in the same place in Stellarium, so must be geo-stationary but co-incidentally aligned with the Starlink trains trajectory. Goes to show how many are up there.

how do you get these to show up in stelarium? i searched starlink but nothing

[Ships and Stars]

They way I would describe it to a non-astronomer is to imagine EVERY tourist spot or panoramic viewpoint on Earth, from the Grand Canyon to Ayers Rock and the Great Wall of China with thousands of drones suddenly popping up every time you wanted to soak in the view or raise a camera. 

That's how bad it will be. Musk really needs to ground these things and the UN or some organisation with some clout needs to put a halt to this. As if Earth wasn't bad enough in most places, now we have to deal with this rubbish totally cluttering up the night skies.

It's going to be completely awful! 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Ships and Stars

[JamesF]

It's going to get all rather interesting when they start bumping into each other...

James

[DaveL59]

5 minutes ago, JamesF said:

It's going to get all rather interesting when they start bumping into each other...

James

lives in hope, better yet to get a video of that to put on his wall of shame  

Edited April 21, 2020 by DaveL59

[westmarch]

To try to inject a note of hope into this, is it not likely that imaging software will evolve to remove the noise of satellites from images. Is it not just about software consulting a database of satellite position and time?

John

[MarkAR]

Found this on YT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giQ8xEWjnBs

Basically it all there so that the UK/US stock exchange can communicate 30ms faster. This enables billionaires to make billions more.

The upside apparently is that for $200 all those in the starving 3rd world countries can buy a flat panel satellite receiver to get the internet.

The plan is for 24 strings of 66 satellites to encompass the globe which means from horizon to horizon you will see over 700 in the sky at one time.

This is all just for one network, there could be another 4 or 5 in the future.