Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by childintime 2576 days ago
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.
2 comments
Kutta 2576 days ago
You can only see LEO satellites near dawn and dusk. They are in shadow most of the time at night.
link
CorvusCrypto 2576 days ago
That doesn't make it better imo, though someone commented under my other response to this that in reality it wouldn't be so noticeable which is good. The moment it makes a noticeable and lingering change in the sky picture, however, I would hope people accept that it would be time to reduce the clutter
link
Robotbeat 2576 days ago
This has been the case since the dawn of spaceflight. Iridium flares in particular have been noticeable even in daytime.

Far less of a problem than airplane lights let alone city lights for the enjoyment of the night sky. The ISS is MUCH larger and brighter.

link
CorvusCrypto 2576 days ago
This is tired logic. The fact remains that if I go out and look up in the sky and see moving lights, I'm going to be annoyed. Airplane, satellite, whatever, it's not a good experience and it is absolutely a problem still regardless of the comparison to other problems. However someone said it would be rare. As long as I don't look up and see non-natural moving lights in the sky I'm cool with it.
link
eightysixfour 2576 days ago
Why do moving lights in the sky irritate you?
link
Robotbeat 2576 days ago
Lots of people enjoy Iridium flares or ISS passes. Have satellites bothered you in the past? You’ve got to really be awed by NIMBYism extending all the way into space.
link
perilunar 2576 days ago
Why? I enjoy seeing satellites and airplane lights at night. Dislike light pollution from city lights though.
link
chomp 2576 days ago
>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.

link
cmdr2 2576 days ago
If it helps, I automated those steps into a simple tracker form: http://me.cmdr2.org/starlink/ will let you find when Starlink will pass over your selected city.

This is using the exact same approach that many redditors said worked for them, but does the data-crunching for you. It's a modified version of the tool you linked to (Jen Satre's excellent satellite calculator), and hardcodes the Starlink data.

link
childintime 2576 days ago
Is there a map out there showing their current position? Tried n2yo.com, but as fas as I know it isn't catalogged yet.
link
chomp 2576 days ago
No there isn't, but I saw this tool on Twitter that you can plug TLE data into: https://www2.flightclub.io/dashboard
link