Astrophotographers, this is how Starlink satellites will affect the night skies

May 30, 2019 by Dunja Djudjic 37 Comments

On 23 May, the first 60 SpaceX’s Starlink satellites were successfully launched into orbit. They were caught on camera and they look spectacular while orbiting around the Earth together. However, the ultimate plan is to launch nearly 12,000 of these satellites. Have you wondered how it will affect the night skies? Astronomers are concerned that they will pollute the night sky, and astrophotography is only one of the areas that could be hindered by this many satellites in the orbit.

While they were gliding together around the Earth, the satellites were bright and clearly visible to the naked eye. However, astronomers are concerned that 11,943 of satellites this bright will change the view on the universe. Darren Baskill, an outreach officer of physics and astronomy at the University of Sussex, told The Verge:

“It’s going to become increasingly likely that the satellites will pass through the field of view and essentially contaminate your view of the Universe, and it’s going to be really difficult to remove that contamination away from our observations.”

Put simply, astronomers use very long exposures to take photos through their telescopes. This way they can gather and study light from distant galaxies. Now imagine a super-bright object going through the frame during a long exposure. It would leave a streak of light that would take up a large portion of the image. Of course, the same thing would happen even if you do astrophotography for the sake of art, not science.

Bruce Macintosh of Stanford University estimates that the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will “likely have to deal with between one and four Starlink satellites in every image within an hour or two of twilight,” National Geographic writes. “For astronomers I think this is more of a nuisance than a disaster, but changing the sky for every human needs talking about,” he recently tweeted.

For astronomers I think this is more of a nuisance than a disaster, but changing the sky for every human needs talking about. https://t.co/H5RjFIIZz0

— Bruce Macintosh (@bmac_astro) May 26, 2019

According to the most recent report from the European Space Agency, there are about 5,000 satellites in orbit around Earth. Around 2,000 of them are still operational, and even they occasionally pose a problem for astronomers. If that number increases for another 12,000 satellites, it could cause serious light pollution in the night skies, causing headache to both astronomers and astrophotographers.

Elon Musk has responded to these concerns, saying that he would direct his team to think about how to reduce the Starlink satellites’ reflectivity. However, as National Geographic notes (and I tend to agree) – this is something we should think about before putting the satellites into orbit.

[via National Geographic, The Verge; image credits: SpaceX]

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Mark Niebauer

They wont even come close to polluting. Do you have any idea the vastness thats out there? Even if a hundred thousand were launched, there would still be plenty of space. Do your homework and do the math, don’t make a blanket statement. to scare everyone. . .lol
- Joe playingmusic
  
  Shut up
- John Purnell
  
  The Dunning-Kruger effect meets the Kessler effect.
- Scott Wilson
  
  Exactly
Robert Baillie

This whole idiotic project of Elon Musk should be shut down before it ruins our view of the night sky. Why is he even being allowed to do this?
- Ryan
  
  Your “view” of the night sky is already polluted by cities. If you don’t live near a city than you have thousands of airplanes that pass over your night sky. Don’t think that this project is going to put thousands of spotlights above your house
- Scott Wilson
  
  Because he’s a lot smarter than you.
Scott Wilson

What’s great about actual reality is you can just do the math. You don’t have to monetize fear.

Some quick napkin math suggests that the entire 12,000 constellation could at any given moment obstruct at least 0.000000000003 to 0.00000000000343 percent of our night sky depending on angles and whatnot. Yes, that does sound terrifying. I’m sure that 12,000 objects slightly smaller, and maybe a 50th of the magnitude of the

12,000 airplanes, each easily 50 times brighter in the sky, literally all the time,

and the entire nonsense story falls apart in a puff of logic.
- Ted Man
  
  That’s an uninformed opinion. Did you read long exposure photography? Like on the order of tens on minutes to an hour or more? Airplanes do no fly over observatory airspace but these damn satellites will. This will cause streaks of light across the frame thus wrecking valuable observing time these astronomers plan for and schedule months in advance.
  - Scott Wilson
    
    Maybe 50 percent of those 12,000 planes have a filed flight plan. The others just have airspace they can use however they want after consulting a tower. So they aren’t even following predictable paths most of time. The result is that we’ve got technology to work around the stray plane or satellite or meteorite streak… already.
    
    And this is still a fake non-story.
    - Carlos Rosa
      
      Even if these satellite mesh are dim enough they represent a worse problem blocking light from distant stars that could lead to misunderstanding some observations like i.e. exoplanet search, timing stars occultations by asteroids and even photometry, in such cases it wouldn`t be possible to distinguish whether it was a true positive lecture or a fortuite dimming caused by starlink`s satellites since even knowing one will pass near the observed object the level of precision to determine it is not available (sub arc seconds). Another problem is related to radioastronomy research and Seti. The purpose of this proyect is not worthwhiling considering its negative effects, it won`t solve the basic needs of million people around the globe that are much other than internet connection but feed and healthcare
- Carlos Rosa
  
  your calculation is wrong because you assume the satellites are not moving, they produce trails and trails intersect and form a mesh, in long exposure this will be noticed with no doubt
  - Scott Wilson
    
    They product trails you say. What are those trails made of? I’m assuming something very bright if the 12,000 airplanes in the air at all times are somehow not as bright.
  - eagleon
    
    What are you talking about he proved it with math you can’t argue with logic and math! What are you, some kind of dumb?
    - Scott Wilson
      
      Some people I tell ya.
Ronald Jackson

For those saying “it’s not a problem – do the math”, well here’s the math:
There are 41,253 square degrees of sky. With 12,000 of these satellites up there, that would mean (on average) one satellite in every 3 1/2 degrees of sky. That’s bad enough, but consider that they are also moving. So, the number of satellites in that field of view is higher over time (for long exposure imaging). The “one and four Starlink satellites in every image” sounds about right. That is VERY intrusive from a data analysis standpoint.
- Scott Wilson
  
  And they are still not even within an order of magnitude of the brightness of the 12,000 airplanes in the air at all times, blinking and being all unpredictable and bright in the sky.
  
  Rendering your argument moot.
  - Ben Mclerran
    
    Do either of you actually do long exposure astrophotography? I doubt it.. so quit pontificating on a subject that you know next to nil. about… No software exists to remove the trails satellites cause. The issue is that it takes multiple long exposure images to make a a good image. So more satellites mean more unusable images. Oh and for the record so called amateur hobbyists have contributed alot to real science. So more space trash means less science too…
    - Scott Wilson
      
      I’m pretty sure long exposure astrophotography can do us all a favor and take itself as seriously as it should before stopping the future.
- Yale Simkin
  
  It is intrusive, but the satellites follow predictable paths and good software should be able to remove them. It is necessary. There are ~5000 objects now and many thousand more on their way from companies other than SpaceX. Amateurs will be at a much bigger disadvantage then professionals.
Null Static Void

a picture would be nice
- Scott Wilson
  
  Sure. The 60 satellites spread out equally in a circle. So at any point you might be able to visually see ONE or maybe TWO on the horizon, at sunrise and sunset, if you are lucky and they are pointed the right way. As more and more go up, that number might increase to TEN you might see, at sunrise and sunset, if you are lucky. You’d have a better chances of spotting one of the billions of insects in the air that you also can’t see that are easier to see.
fuzzy2000

I would like to punch Elon Musk’s lights out. That nasty little prick is really asking for it.
- Ryan
  
  Go punch all the thousands of airplane pilots that fly at night while your at it. And all those nasty television and internet satalites too.
Wesley Shaner

Matte black spray paint, Vantablack, dark but lightweight metals, etc You get the idea
- Scott Wilson
  
  Spraying solar panels black tends to reduce their efficiency.
Ar Bound

And that’s only Starlink….several other companies are planing more of the same.
PorfirioR

The irony of posting on the Internet to complain about… the Internet.
The Internet expanding into space was inevitable, Verizon is running out of trees to cut and soil to ruin.
Rhett Livingston

On a good night, I might see a few dozen stars in the night sky. We’ve already messed it up from down here. If one day we could all look up and see a mighty ring of space habitats overhead, it would be an improvement.

Instead of fighting vainly to push back the inevitable, try asking for something constructive. If SpaceX would agree to hosting a few pounds of sensors on each of the 12K satellites, we could place different types of sensors (varying wavelengths) on each and create multiple highly reconfigurable array-type telescopes with diameters larger than Earth, with no significant air, water, etc. between them and the stars, that is capable of being quickly reconfigurable to view in any direction.

Lobby to turn this into a massive advance in astronomy, not to obstruct growth for the sake of maintaining status quo.
- eagleon
  
  I like the way you think, and I agree it might actually make people think about space more if there were more than just empty blackness or cloud-reflected light at night in the city, but they’re not stationary, which is a huge problem for telescopes. Tracking components to adjust their focal points in-orbit would add costs and potentially interfere with their primary purpose. And who gets access to this system? Is Musk going to allow university students to screw around with his satellites? What about the investment telescope operators have put into existing projects? It sucks all-around for astronomy and there’s no way around that for a very long time if this goes up.
  - Rhett Livingston
    
    Perhaps your thoughts on cost are correct, I don’t know. But, I’ve never heard of anyone investigation the cost of a solution like this – thousands of tiny sensors instead of s few large ones. The launch cost always made it ludicrous. The satellites themselves will already have exquisite position knowledge due to the need to aim lasers at other fast moving satellites for communication. I bet the cost of systems to point the sensors independent of the satellite itself is geometrically related to size and would be orders of magnitude lower than big space telescopes.
    
    In addition, the 12000 sats could be dynamically configured as a couple big multispectral devices or hundreds of smaller ones. Operation would be 24/7. I think there might be enough to go around.
    
    Anyway, worth a brainstorm session for somebody.
Yale Simkin

The issue is real, but not unmanageable. The satellites, as they are now designed, will appear on average to be between 5th and 7th magnitude in brightness (the higher the number, the dimmer it is).
Each magnitude is 2 1/2 times dimmer. Magnitude 3 or 4 is the dimmest you can see in the city. 5 or so is the dimmest in the suburbs. 7th magnitude is invisible even in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
There are large numbers of satellite brighter than 5th magnitude visible each night, and nobody notices them.
The problem is moot, tho, because SpaceX is essentially blackening the future ones and they will be more or less invisible.
The problem is with professional astronomers. Even dim satellites are an issue. SpaceX is promising to adjust orbits when required by an observing program. I suspect that when that is not possible, the software will need to remove the images as they do now.
It is a problem, but not a catastrophe. Amazon, OneWeb and others are also launching constellations of thousands of satellites. I hope they take steps to minimize their visual footprint, also.
- Scott Wilson
  
  Very true. Evidenced by the fact that the “issue” is already dealt with. Every modern telescope has some technology to deal with aberrant light events. Dealing with a fraction of a percent more is no big deal.
  - eagleon
    
    “There are thousands of objects astronomers need to potentially remove from their observations so even if you’re making that problem worse I don’t see how they can take any issue”
P. Clark

Priorities driven by necessity will win in the end. We will continue to put our lenses above the satellites for clear images . The world’s need for better internet will surpass the needs of a few amateur hobbyists and the medias need for adding selling martyrs.
Jason Griffith

I don’t give a shit, I just want to have a choice when it comes to buying internet Instead of having timewarner/spectrum being forced onto me. I’d rather give my $135 a month for gigabit internet to Elon Musk who will promise the same speeds or more.
- eagleon
  
  I mean at least you’re honest? Look at the guy below spending hours here trying to argue with what professional astronomers are saying using calc.exe

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