[19870213]

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

[CorvusCrypto]

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.

[mikeash]

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.

[CorvusCrypto]

Hmm no. That does put me at more ease.

And yeah I included that last part in the estimate for seeing up to 50, otherwise the projection would be of course up to half of all of them.

[mikeash]

Don’t get me wrong, Starlink will be a substantial increase in the number of satellites. But if you don’t notice them now, it probably won’t be overwhelming after.

[HeadsUpHigh]

I think their end goal with the full constellation deployed is 3 satellites in view at any time. And they should only shine at dusk/dawn.