Discussions

I was just out on my west-facing balcony for about 10 minutes and saw at least 20-30 satellites pass in front of the Orion constellation. Usually 1-3 at a time, some passing directly through Orion's belt. It was pretty cool.  
 
Just wondering if anyone else saw this or knows if this is normal or if there was a launch of some sort?

This happened last night too. I wasnt able to find any info though.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/starlink-spacex-satellites-amazon-oneweb-global-internet-astronomy

Its Elon Musk flexing again with his satellites for worldwide internet. Couple thousand planned and approved for launch so far. Could be up to 42,000 by the time he's done and has all the approvals.  
 
The need for so many is to be able to provide continuous internet access to people. In Canada that will be primarily up north and remote communities not serviced by anyone but xplornet with their data capped 3mbps plans from the 90's ( some improvements have been made in recent years )

are becoming a pain in the butt for astronomers. SpaceX is trying to make it so the they don't shine as much, but haven't succeeded yet. Nothing like getting your long exposure ruined by multiple streaks from the satellites. You can remove 1 or 2 streaks, but start getting more than that becomes tougher.  
 
The other company that was going to do it has gone bankrupt and only have a few satellites up.

What is the object shining so brightly in the western night sky recently? I don’t think it’s a satellite as it doesn’t appear to be moving. I suspect it may be a planet but when I tried Googling it I couldn’t find anything recent. There’s also a brighter star in the southwest night sky now - is that Venus?  
Thank you! Appreciate your knowledge on these topics

Venus is in the west, Sirius is in the Southwest.  
 
Edited by Trevor B, 2020-03-30 18:57:53

Got a phone call from one of my sons last night asking if I could go outside, strange request to say the least.  
Went outside and stayed on the phone as he described what he was seeing, not sure how many we watched, then explained about the group of satellites. They were not really that bright, but can understand the problems that they can for anyone trying to peer out into space.  
They have said that they are hoping to have enough satellites in orbit that you will be able to communicate from anywhere on the surface of the planet. It’s definitely going to get crowded up there with both orbiting and stationary satellites.

is live streaming the Moon and talking about the StarLink satellites.  
 
https://www.facebook.com/watchparty/517382052301935/

Too see the next passes, Heavens-Above is a good site.  
https://www.heavens-above.com/StarlinkLaunchPasses.aspx  
 
And the plan is to have 12,000 of them orbiting.

of these satellite constellations.  
 
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2020/02/15/the-problem-with-satellite-mega-constellations/  
 
While there are other satellite constellations like GPS, Sirius/XM, etc., they are in a much higher geosynchronous orbit. Essentially with geosynch orbits, they match Earth's rotation and stay in the same spot.  
 
These Starlink's are much lower and have regular orbits. And they can auto adjust their orbits which makes predictions of them more difficult.