SpaceX sats

Looking into the northern sky from the shores of leech lake, I see this string of lights, had to be 15 at least shooting across the sky in a straight line single file. Super freakin weird! 3 of us just look at each other like wtf did we just see?

I don’t pay too much attention to the news, so after some quick googling come to find out Elon is shooting thousands of these satellites into our sky.

Not sure how I feel about this. My clear night sky’s have a super holy land type of feeling for me, so these mechanicals interrupting my view to the cosmos makes me, quite honestly, a lil butthurt. Times have changed so much in just my short time here on earth, now I wonder what something as simple as a night sky might look like in 40 years is boggling my mind.

In 40 years you will be riding in one returning from a outer space vacation.

First of all: theres not much left that’s holy in this world.
That being said I recall being in Quetico with a buddy and watching with incredible clarity the space station pass by in timed intervals. I was amazed at what we could make out on that ship from our earthly perch.

From the heart and honest, man, I like it. I hear you on the whole “sanctity” of the night sky thing. I don’t know much on this topic however, so probably shouldn’t say much..

The Starlink train is highly visible for the first week or so after launch. They slowly disperse spreading further and further apart, eventually blending into the stars. After a month you likely won’t even know its passing overhead.

Starlink has been experimenting with anti reflective coatings to make the satellites disappear, but have yet to settle on a final design that doesn’t negatively effect the satellites.

munchy wrote:

Starlink has been experimenting with anti reflective coatings to make the satellites disappear, but have yet to settle on a final design that doesn’t negatively effect the satellites.

That’s great news. Hope they can figure it out

Another 60 of them launched on a rocket earlier today. With any luck it was just the solar panels reflecting the light and once they stabilize in orbit they might not be seen as easily. As of March 24, there were already 1300 in orbit

I don’t mind it. I think it’s cool to be honest. Their satellites provide my internet access at the moment.

This is very interesting. I get to see it one time it was just a rectangle. Silver in color and bright.

https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

I hate it. When I’m in the bwca, I want to be as far away from “modern” life as possible. Seeing those stupid things ruins an amazing night sky. 1300 up right now with plans for 30,000! It’s going to look like the Jetsons up there. Astronomers are fuming apparently.

Sitting around a neighbors campfire Friday night and we had a string of Starlink satellites fly over about 10:30 or so. This was in the Rush City MN area. It was pretty cool to see. Not sure I want to see this on a nightly basis so was glad to read that they eventually move further apart and blend in with the stars.

you see more planes flying over head than any satellites you’ll ever notice is orbit.

walleyevision wrote:

I hate it. When I’m in the bwca, I want to be as far away from “modern” life as possible. Seeing those stupid things ruins an amazing night sky. 1300 up right now with plans for 30,000! It’s going to look like the Jetsons up there. Astronomers are fuming apparently.

If you let a minor thing like a Starlink train running by for a few minutes ruin your time in the BWCA I’d hate to see what a major catastrophe will do to you.

Like I said they are mainly visible during the first week after launch, and the probability of actually seeing it pass overhead is low. Once they get spaced out and into their final orbit and altitude they are barely visible if at all.

They tried anti reflective coatings which reduced but didn’t fully eliminate the visibility. From what I have found they apparently now have a robotic sun visor that cuts the visibility virtually invisible. That sun visor needs to extend out during orientation so the train is still visible until the visors set themselves into place.

Honestly there are 1300 Starlinks up right now, besides the most recent train they released do they ruin your day any other time? What about when a plane flies overhead? Those you can see AND HEAR!! Oh the humanity!!!!

Don’t the satellites pretty much look like stars anyway? Not sure how that really interrupts the view. 🤔

I saw these fishing with the Malmo Mafioso a few years ago, and had I not read something in the news that day, I would have figured our Alien overlords were lining up to invade the following day! It’s pretty wild how uniform they are, and then basically vanish once they’re done moving.

BigWerm wrote:

I saw these fishing with the Malmo Mafioso a few years ago, and had I not read something in the news that day, I would have figured our Alien overlords were lining up to invade the following day! It’s pretty wild how uniform they are, and then basically vanish once they’re done moving.

I’ve only seen them once, they were spaced about 10 seconds apart from one another, and can definitely understand how some people may get scared seeing them. I follow a few public safety/police scanner pages on facebook and there was apparently a bunch of 911 calls last week when they went overhead after first being released. I’d love a chance to see them tightly bunched up like that.

Sharon wrote:

Don’t the satellites pretty much look like stars anyway? Not sure how that really interrupts the view. 🤔

Fair question.

For some when we enter the woods, water, or wherever else that happy place we all have is, we don’t want to hear or see a single siren, semi truck, road construction, phone beep, and yes, even as simple as a train of silent satellites buzzing across the night sky.

That line of satellites reconnects us to whatever it was we are currently trying to escape, and for me, that is interrupting, on a deeper level than just mere senses.

Not sure about the rest of you fellas, but I need that escape here and there. Life is hectic enough at times, would be to bad to see our night sky become “busier”. I like it the way it is now, still.

I sure do hope they figure out the invisibility thing.

Serenity comes from within you, not from the stars. Most of them don’t even exist anymore.

Sharon wrote:

Serenity comes from within you, not from the stars. Most of them don’t even exist anymore.

Ugh, ok. I personally find peace looking at the heavens. I want to see what God made, not Mr. Musk. To each his own I guess.

Are we really arguing about lights in our dark skies? It’s lights not a dump truck driving by your campsite.

We saw the Friday night string while sitting around the fire Friday night around 10:30 too. They were close at that point. It was pretty cool. I knew what they were but did not know the details mentioned above. Pretty responsible they are thinking of the reflection and dispersing them after launch.

BigWerm wrote:

I saw these fishing with the Malmo Mafioso a few years ago, and had I not read something in the news that day, I would have figured our Alien overlords were lining up to invade the following day! It’s pretty wild how uniform they are, and then basically vanish once they’re done moving.

These satellites will only stop moving when they hit the ground. They are low earth orbit and will be about 500 miles above ground and should travel from horizon to horizon in about 12 minutes and probably complete and orbit around the planet in under 2 hours

eyeguy507 wrote:

Are we really arguing about lights in our dark skies?

Who’s arguing? Why make something seem like a conflict when everyone is simply stating their opinion on the matter, or their Dr.Phil advice.

Jeremy wrote:

These satellites will only stop moving when they hit the ground. They are low earth orbit and will be about 500 miles above ground and should travel from horizon to horizon in about 12 minutes and probably complete and orbit around the planet in under 2 hours

I had originally thought they were geostationary. The Googler says otherwise.

The Starlink satellites are not geostationary. They are much closer to earth orbiting between 400 and 700 kilometres high. They are in a polar orbit travelling north-south and complete a full circumnavigation in about 90 minutes.

-J.

Jon Jordan wrote:

The Starlink satellites are not geostationary. They are much closer to earth orbiting between 400 and 700 kilometres high.

Regular satellite internet is geostationary but that’s 35,700km (something around there). That’s why the latency is so terrible on current satellite internet, it’s ~250ms round trip at speed of light and has to do it twice. Starlink fixes the latency but being so low needs tons of them for coverage whereas, if I remember right, ViaSat only has 4 satellites and HughesNet has 2.

They are in low earth orbit and need to keep moving otherwise gravity takes over and they will fall to earth.

This has been going on for years now….not sure why this is so new to everyone? Maybe I spend more time watching the sky than others

Jesse Krook wrote:

This has been going on for years now….not sure why this is so new to everyone? Maybe I spend more time watching the sky than others

Also seen them a couple years ago… as more and more go up, more will see them and “discover” them. The first time we seen them, it literally looked like an invasion from outer space… thank god for Google, we could all go off high alert.

Heads up! Two trains visible tonight. First is around 9:25 from the WNW traveling the southern sky setting in the SE. Second is 10:10 from the SW passing directly overhead and setting NE. They will only last less than 10 minutes so head out early if the skies are clear!

May 13th over minnetonka at 0330hrs.

Attachments:

1. 

   IMG_0536-scaled.jpg