Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye • Hacker News Board

Re: Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye

#11

Post by mikeash » Sat, May 25, 2019, 3:02 PM UTC

CorvusCrypto wrote: post #9

19870213 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are currently spreading out and once they have spread out enough they will move on their own power to their final orbits.

Hmmm well I hope it's not noticeable because starlink is planning 24 orbital planes with 60 satellites per. With that it's safe to say you could see up to 50 or so of them in a night due to the constellation pattern. That's a lot of flickering and moving light in the sky when coupled with AWS' initiative also. I'm hoping your right but at first glance it doesn't seem great.

There are well over a thousand operational satellites in low earth orbit currently, plus I don’t know how many dead ones. Have you noticed those?

They’re only visible for about an hour after sunset, since the satellite itself still has to be illuminated to be visible.

Re: Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye

#12

Post by aristophenes » Sat, May 25, 2019, 3:23 PM UTC

Imagine all the people who have never heard about SpaceX that see these. They will think the aliens have arrived :)

Re: Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye

#13

Post by chomp » Sat, May 25, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

childintime wrote: post #5

Counted 52 spots, plus an additional 2 which only appeared briefly and dimly, a little off the track of the others. 4 or 5 dots seem to be pairs. So that acounts for pretty much all satellites. I'd like to experience this for myself. With 12000 of them the sky will be quite littered with them though. Astronomy will never be the same again.

>I’d like to experience this for myself.

Find out when the satellites pass over you!

Here's the TLE data that someone estimated: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2019/0207.html

Here's an online calculator: https://www.satellite-calculations.com/TLETracker/SatTracker...

Plug in the TLE data, select your town or enter your coordinates, and generate a 24 hour projection! Find a time where the elevation is higher than 10 or 20 degrees so that you can actually see it.

Re: Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye

#14

Post by senectus1 » Sat, May 25, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

is this what its always going to look like when we have 12000 of the things in the sky?

Astronomers are going to be going spare

Re: Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye

#15

Post by thanatos_dem » Sat, May 25, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

Looks a lot like the cloud ark from Neil Stevenson’s hard science fiction book ”Seveneves”.

The long of the short of it is that moon goes boom, kills life on earth, humanity survives onboard the ISS and a flurry of small habitation pods which are splayed out into a string so they share an orbit, but isolated in case they get hit by space debris.

The book came out in 2015, and despite having a fictional plot, nearly all of the science checks out.

Re: Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye

#16

Post by agildehaus » Sat, May 25, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

aristophenes wrote: post #12

Imagine all the people who have never heard about SpaceX that see these. They will think the aliens have arrived :)

https://twitter.com/hashtag/ufo

Already happening.

Re: Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye

#17

Post by dahfizz » Sat, May 25, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

CorvusCrypto wrote: post #6

Okay that's interesting but I have to say it's also quite ugly. Is this a new trend to cluster satellites like this? If so what advantage does it bring and is it worth that ugly streak appearing in the night? I get this comment is very subjective but surely I'm not the only one thinking it's a bit of an eyesore

Is it uglier than telephone poles and huge cell towers everywhere? Of all the infrastructure humans build out, this is probably going to be one of the least eyesore.

Re: Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye

#18

Post by clashmoore » Sat, May 25, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

mrep wrote: post #4

Here is another video: https://vimeo.com/338361997

Like morse code trying to tell us something.

Re: Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye

#19

Post by childintime » Sat, May 25, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

chomp wrote: post #13

childintime wrote: post #5

Counted 52 spots, plus an additional 2 which only appeared briefly and dimly, a little off the track of the others. 4 or 5 dots seem to be pairs. So that acounts for pretty much all satellites. I'd like to experience this for myself. With 12000 of them the sky will be quite littered with them though. Astronomy will never be the same again.

>I’d like to experience this for myself. Find out when the satellites pass over you! Here's the TLE data that someone estimated: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2019/0207.html Here's an online calculator: https://www.satellite-calculations.com/TLETracker/SatTracker... Plug in the TLE data, select your town or enter your coordinates, and generate a 24 hour projection! Find a time where the elevation is higher than 10…

Is there a map out there showing their current position? Tried n2yo.com, but as fas as I know it isn't catalogged yet.

Re: Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye

#20

Post by childintime » Sat, May 25, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

Good info on starlink: https://wyliodrin.com/post/starlink-the-internet-of-space

6 months ago, so not accurate about the height.