Starlink : Satellite Spotting

[Yellowstone10]

I'm confused; I see some people reporting Starlink train spottings well into the hours of darkness. How is this possible? Unless the sats are in sunlight (and it's dark where the observer is), how can they be visible?

The orbit of the satellites is pretty close to the terminator at the moment. We're only about a month from the summer solstice, so the terminator is already close to its minimum inclination of 67°, pretty close to Starlink at 53°. And the satellites launched relatively close to sunset. So the sats are in sunlight more so than they'll be at other times of the year, or once the orbit precesses some.

[Bubbinski]

Last night at 10:13 I tried to spot the Starlink flying up to 36 degrees high in the east. Couldn’t see it. There’s light pollution and sometimes haze in that area (the lights of Sandy and Draper/benches just before the Wasatch Mountains). Other Salt Lake Astronomical Society members in different locations couldn’t see it either. Maybe the satellites are getting dimmer each day as they move away from each other? We’ll see

[OxCartMark]

What web sites are people using to predict the overpass? I took a quick look at heavens above yesterday but didn't find Starlink...Thanks

I'm not an expert but this is how I did it -

[OxCartMark]

I'm confused; I see some people reporting Starlink train spottings well into the hours of darkness. How is this possible? Unless the sats are in sunlight (and it's dark where the observer is), how can they be visible?

www.satflare.com[/url]

I just took a look at satflare.com and it seems nice, easy to use.  But as CJ points out I'm getting a prediction that the brightest pass in the chart, 1.8 magnitude will be at 3:30 in the morning.  How can that be, the sun will be on the other side of the rock?  The chart below is edited down but originally contained many more sighting opportunities.

[Semmel]

I'm confused; I see some people reporting Starlink train spottings well into the hours of darkness. How is this possible? Unless the sats are in sunlight (and it's dark where the observer is), how can they be visible?

www.satflare.com[/url]

I just took a look at satflare.com and it seems nice, easy to use.  But as CJ points out I'm getting a prediction that the brightest pass in the chart, 1.8 magnitude will be at 3:30 in the morning.  How can that be, the sun will be on the other side of the rock?  The chart below is edited down but originally contained many more sighting opportunities.

The sun is on the other side but shining over the north pole to your location. At 400km up, the sats can be seen up to 2000km away. Also, that means, the sats can be illuminated by the sun up to 2000km from the terminator. 2000km is about 19 degrees. Everything up to northward of 70 degrees is in permanent sunlight at moment. With additional 20 degrees illumination of starlink sats, that means if they are northward of 50 degrees north, they are in sunlight. The sats go up to about 60 degrees north, so will be visibile at every northern pass in the northern hemisphere say to about 40 degrees north. All very rough numbers but should give you an approximate reason why you can see them in the middle of the night. I saw them at 10 minutes past midnight last night, directly passing overhead at 52 degrees north.

[CT Space Guy]

Thanks for all the answers and web sites. I haven't gone out spotting in years

[tvg98]

Just saw them pass over the UK. They're a lot dimmer than they appeared in the videos that have been posted in the past few days.

[192]

Just saw them over the UK, really unique and amazing sight to see so many sats together. Mostly fairly dim with the occasional flare.

[OxCartMark]

For anyone reporting what you've seen, how's about telling us your viewing conditions (amount of light & clouds), the magnitude predicted for your sighting, what if any optics you used, camera lens length for pictures, and your impression of how visible they were.

[RocketLover0119]

Pass for me is in 1 hour, crossing my fingers! will pass along photos if I see them.

[gongora]

I live on the north side of Atlanta and didn't even see them until they were at the azimuth zenith over my house because of all of the light pollution coming from the south (and lots of airplanes on the southern horizon too).  I saw a brighter satellite go by a few minutes earlier in a different direction.  In the few seconds I could see them before they went behind one of the big oak trees I counted at least 33.  (My house is really not ideal for skywatching.)

[theinternetftw]

Just saw it on the east coast.  Recommend holding out a little longer than the estimated rise time.

A ghostly line taking up far more of the sky than I expected and moving at a good clip, each member of the train glimmering in turn as they occasionally lined up just right with the sun.  A long procession of stragglers that have already started to rise up and space out follow the main train, each appearing one by one for quite some time.

Didn't need binoculars, but it wasn't anywhere near as bright as can be seen in the videos that have been posted, and I was in a relatively dark area with little light pollution.  You have to be looking for it.

[AndrewJ]

Just saw them in Ontario, Canada, about 60 km north of Toronto. Too much haze and city lights to see them with the naked eye, but visible as a flowing stream of dots through binoculars.

[dccraven]

About an hour ago I saw the "train" of Starlink satellites pass over Chattanooga, TN. We could see them clearly as they passed directly overhead with several really reflecting light...almost sparkling as they went by.

[OxCartMark]

Huh, supposedly a bright pass past me, magnitude 2.6 and I was in residential neighborhood light with clear skies and saw nearly nothing.  One lowish illumination satellite visible on a path similar to what I was expecting but nothing else on that path then two other satellites from left field.  I was on the job for plenty of pre and post prediction time.  At least tonight I didn't have 4 other people standing out looking at other locations texting me disappointedly like I did last night.

[ClayJar]

Baton Rouge, here.  A bit of haze and lots of light pollution, even a few miles downstream on the levee.  Predicted magnitude 1.8, with a rise at 20:59, best at 21:05, set at 21:11 (all times local).

I saw just a couple satellites along with a mere smattering of stars during my wait.  I saw nothing of the Starlink train until my timer pinged 21:10, at which point my eye was suddenly drawn to a bright flare in the middle of a short Starlink train crossing about where I'd expected them to be at the highest point.  I didn't get a count, as I lost them all to light pollution moments later.  I managed to just make out a couple more individual dots following well behind.

[matthewkantar]

In Buffalo NY, middle of the city, saw 6 of them dimly following one another, the others must have been too washed out by all the light around me. They were much more spaced out than than i thought they would be.

[tater]

Pass almost at zenith here in Albuquerque. A few were extremely bright, others changed magnitude a lot. For this batch, incredibly cool to watch. If I was on my patio and saw a mesh of them on the sky a few years from now... yuck.

I'm a SpaceX fan, and I'll wait for them to reach target orbit before getting really worried, but this is... concerning.

[Mandella]

I live on the north side of Atlanta and didn't even see them until they were at the azimuth over my house because of all of the light pollution coming from the south (and lots of airplanes on the southern horizon too).  I saw a brighter satellite go by a few minutes earlier in a different direction.  In the few seconds I could see them before they went behind one of the big oak trees I counted at least 33.  (My house is really not ideal for skywatching.)

Howdy neighbor!

Exactly the same report. Also didn't see them till zenith, which makes me think that they must have just passed out of Earth's shadow into the sunlight. A smeary but absolutely straight fuzzy line -- looked like someone was writing across the sky with a faded glitter pen.

I even saw the "other satellite," which I thought was just a high flying plane. Anybody know which other satellite that was?

I was using the n2yo.com tracker, and it seemed right on, maybe a few minutes behind. The constellation was really moving too, and much dimmer than the first reports.

[archae86]

Albuquerque, NM.
Both n2yo and SatFlare forecast a good viewing opportunity with nearest approach to zenith about 9:41 p.m. at about 86 degrees.

I went to my roof with a pair of 10x42 image-stabilized binoculars of excellent optical quality and was very glad I had them.

I'm about ten miles from the city center, and the satellites rose just about over the city, so in a bright part of the light pollution.  I scanned the SW horizon back and forth with the binoculars, and first saw three dots travelling fast in perfect train.  For a surprising number of seconds I could only see those three through the binoculars, and nothing with naked eye.  As the train approached zenith I saw many more--eventually about thirty, with my "bright three" mixed in with many other dimmer ones.

The time of nearest approach to zenith was quite close to the n2yo and SatFlare forecast, within a minute or two.  The "bright three" were moderately dimmer than the stars of Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) and the others were much dimmer.  Even near zenith not many were naked eye visible here beyond the bright three.

Today was windy, so seeing was probably a bit dust impaired.  Also the city is close enough to impose appreciable light pollution.  For reference, while I could easily locate all of the primary stars of the Big Dipper, I could only confidently locate Polaris in the Little Dipper. 

The two dominant features were fast movement relative to the stellar background (or even airplanes), and movement in near-perfect train.