Starlink Satellite Train

This is a real-time video, in 4K, of the SpaceX Starlink satellite train from the first group of 60 satellites launched, and captured here on May 26/27, 2019 from home in southern Alberta.

I recorded two passes:
• An early one in deep twilight low across the south, and ...
• A later one on the next orbit in a dark sky as they passed overhead through the Dippers.

Contrary to expectations and despite the small size of the satellites, some appeared very bright, easily naked eye, and as bright as magnitude 2 or or even 1 (the brightest stars).

Yes, most of the few dozen satellites in the train were faint, but on these passes four were quite bright.

This has raised the concern of many astronomers, myself included, for the despoiling of the night by what would eventually be hundreds of these internet satellites in our sky – your sky – at once, littering the night and even outnumbering the stars from some sites.

This and many other posted videos and images prove the Starlinks are not just visible at dusk and dawn – not in summer at higher latitudes – nor are they always dim and sub-visual.

As such Starlinks will ruin all-sky surveys planned with billion-dollar telescopes and might even litter the field of the Hubble Space Telescope which orbits at a similar altitude. They will spoil all photography and naked-eye enjoyment of the "dark sacred night."

All for profit. Lawsuits will be flying!

No one has the right to deface the view of the night sky that belongs to all of us worldwide as a priceless and shared human heritage.

TECHNICAL:
For both passes I used a Sony a7III camera at ISO 51,200 and with a dragged shutter speed of 1/15 second which the Sonys allow, despite the video shooting at 24 frames per second.

For the first sequence of the early pass, not knowing how long the train would be as I had yet to see a pass, I used a 14mm Sigma lens at f/1.8.

For the second sequence I used a 24mm Canon lens at f/1.4.

The camera was on a fixed tripod. It was not tracking the sky. There is no soundtrack and only the ambient sound of me rustling.

Видео Starlink Satellite Train канала AmazingSky