Did I see a satellite?

[Spier24]

 

So I was out observing in the back garden earlier and I saw what I think were two satellites within about 10 minutes of each other. One travelling straight across the sky from the south to the north and another moving across the western sky. 

 

Then as I was looking at M81 I saw something quite bright fly across the field of view in the eyepiece, I looked up to see if I could follow it but it was gone. 

Happened between 19:30-1950 GMT time.

[Paul M]

I think that these days it's impossible to watch the night sky for more than a few minutes and not see a satellite. They're everywhere!

Every single time I'm using my guide camera to polar align I see a satellite pass through the field of view. The area towards the Pole Star sees a concentration of Polar Orbiting satellites as their orbits converge over the pole. In the lighter months the sun's light reaches far over the horizon at those orbital altitudes even at midnight so they can be quite dazzling!

I remember a time when I'd be excited to see a satellite. Now they're a nuisance! 

Just no one mention Starlink... (oops!)

[wulfrun]

As per above, they seem hard to avoid. I've seen them more times than not and also had them streak across the eyepiece view. Somewhat distracting for visual but a pain in the metaphorical neck for imagers I'd guess.

[Spier24]

2 hours ago, Paul M said:

I think that these days it's impossible to watch the night sky for more than a few minutes and not see a satellite. They're everywhere!

Every single time I'm using my guide camera to polar align I see a satellite pass through the field of view. The area towards the Pole Star sees a concentration of Polar Orbiting satellites as their orbits converge over the pole. In the lighter months the sun's light reaches far over the horizon at those orbital altitudes even at midnight so they can be quite dazzling!

I remember a time when I'd be excited to see a satellite. Now they're a nuisance! 

Just no one mention Starlink... (oops!)

They're more common than I thought then. It was only my second night of observing so I thought seeing one streak across the eyepiece was quite interesting. Couldn't help but crack a UFO joke or two 😂👽 especially because I was observing M81 and M82 as I saw it.

[Robindonne]

Here is a current map of the satellites.  Do you recognize one from the picture?🙁

Edited March 15, 2021 by Robindonne

[Sunshine]

Nice image of M13!

[wxsatuser]

5 hours ago, wulfrun said:

As per above, they seem hard to avoid. I've seen them more times than not and also had them streak across the eyepiece view. Somewhat distracting for visual but a pain in the metaphorical neck for imagers I'd guess.

Not really, get enough subs and the correct stacking method and these magically disappear.

[Astro Waves]

Went out just to have a look the sky last night as it was far too windy to shoot and saw a row of 4! Good guy Elon Musk isn't it 😑

It actually annoys me that there is noting that can be done about the amount of satellites in the sky and even more so that when they are not needed any more nothing happens to them and they just float around.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Astro Waves

[Marvin Jenkins]

Ten minutes observing the moon last night and three past through the fov. As mentioned before, the first time is wow, now it’s getting boring and a distraction.

On the flip side I can access my moon app on 4G via my iPhone in the garden right by my scope, so at least I can identify that crater!

Problem is I could do that with a flip out map and a head torch and not have people WhatsApp me at the EP about work!!!

Marv

[MKHACHFE]

On 17/03/2021 at 19:04, Astro Waves said:

Went out just to have a look the sky last night as it was far too windy to shoot and saw a row of 4! Good guy Elon Musk isn't it 😑

It actually annoys me that there is noting that can be done about the amount of satellites in the sky and even more so that when they are not needed any more nothing happens to them and they just float around.

Actually, the ones that become obsolete or out of service are either de orbited and burn up or are pushed into a higher"graveyard" orbit. 

Lets be honest...most AP sessions consist of hundreds of subs..is it REALLY that big an issue if a handful are ruined? 

Im not siding with Elon, but neither am I going to proclaim the end of astrophotography due to Starlink. 

 

[Knight of Clear Skies]

1 hour ago, MKHACHFE said:

Lets be honest...most AP sessions consist of hundreds of subs..is it REALLY that big an issue if a handful are ruined? 

As an amateur, I'm not concerned, a sigma-clip when stacking will remove nearly all the trails. It's a problem for professional observatories though which are going to have a lot of ruined observations. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory survey telescope is commissioning soon. Satellite constellations are going to have a big impact on its operations.

"A study in 2020 by the European Southern Observatory estimated that up to 30% to 50% of the exposures around twilight with the Rubin Observatory would be severely affected by satellite constellations. Survey telescopes have a large field of view and they study short-lived phenomena like supernova or asteroids,[114] and mitigation methods that work on other telescopes may be less effective. The images would be affected especially during twilight (50%) and at the beginning and end of the night (30%). For bright trails the complete exposure could be ruined by a combination of saturation, crosstalk (far away pixels gaining signal due to the nature of CCD electronics), and ghosting (internal reflections within the telescope and camera) caused by the satellite trail, affecting an area of the sky significantly larger than the satellite path itself during imaging. For fainter trails only a quarter of the image would be lost.[115] A previous study by the Rubin Observatory found an impact of 40% at twilight and only nights in the middle of the winter would be unaffected."

"Particular scientific goals of the observatory include:[61]

Studying dark energy and dark matter by measuring weak gravitational lensing, baryon acoustic oscillations, and photometry of type Ia supernovae, all as a function of redshift.[41]
Mapping small objects in the Solar System, particularly near-Earth asteroids and Kuiper belt objects. LSST is expected to increase the number of catalogued objects by a factor of 10–100.[62] It will also help with the search for the hypothesized Planet Nine.[63][64]
Detecting transient astronomical events including novae, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, quasar variability, and gravitational lensing, and providing prompt event notifications to facilitate follow-up.
Mapping the Milky Way."

This timelapse video I made shows M31 under attack by swarms of satellites.