Satellites - Images | Amazing Sky Astrophotography by Alan Dyer

$This is NGC 457, the ET or Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia, in a stack of images showing the total number of satellite trails recorded over the 36 minutes of total expposure time this night. By coincidence, the trails frame the main subject, but the number of satellites now above us make it nearly impossible to take a long exposure image, certainly at the start or end of a night, without recording at least one satellite trail, if not more, per image. Some of the parallel streaks could be Starlink satellites. This was from 51° north on a mid-October night, between 8:18 pm and 8:52 pm MDT. This is a stack of 12 x 3-minute exposures, stacked to add together, rather than average out, the trails. This was with the Starfield Géar90 apo refractor at f/4.8 with its Reducer/Flattener, and Canon Ra at ISO 1600.$

NGC 457 with Accumulated Satellite T...jpg

A passage of a StarLink satellite group shortly after launch when they were still bright and closely spaced. This was at dawn on August 29, 2022, with this G4-23 group having been launched the morning before on August 28. They are passing above the Pleiades and Mars in Taurus. <br />
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This is a stack of two 4K video frames, from a real-time video taken with the Canon R6 and TTArtisan 21mm lens at f/1.5. Stacking more frames resulted in too much image blurring from the satellite motion.

StarLink G4-23 Passage (Aug 29, 2022...jpg

The International Space Station (ISS) flying away to the east over the moonlit badlands formations at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on July 12, 2022, just before local midnight. The image frames the stars of Cassiopeia (upper left), Perseus (at left), Andromeda (centre) and Pegasus (at right). A couple of other fainter satellites are also in the image. Light from the almost Full Moon illuminates the sky blue and foreground a warm colour. <br />
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This is a single 20-second exposure with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 23mm and f/4 and Canon Ra at ISO 400.

ISS over Hoodoos at Dino Park.jpg

This is a blend of exposures showing all the satellites (and a few aircraft) recorded by the camera on a late spring night (June 1-2, 2022) from latitude 51° North, from where and when satellites are illuminated all night long and can be seen all through the short night. This is looking almost due south.<br />
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This illustrates the very crowded sky above us now. And likely none of these are SpaceX Starlink satellites, as most of those are now below naked-eye brightness when in their final orbits. The satellites recorded here would have mostly been visible to the naked-eye. Most of the brightest satellites are also polar-orbiting, in north-south paths here. The Space Station did not make any passes this night. <br />
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A few trails (the colourful ones, made of lots of dots) are from aircraft. And some very short streaks are meteors, or perhaps flaring satellites. <br />
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The inset shows a blow up of the central area, showing even more satellites, the fainter ones, visible at that greater scale. The field of view of the main image is 120° wide. <br />
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This is a stack of 515 exposures taken over 3 hours 15 minutes from 11:23 pm to 2:38 am MDT on June 1-2, 2022, each 20 seconds long with the 11mm TTArtisan full-frame fish-eye lens at f/2.8 and the Canon R5 at ISOs from 1600 to 6400, shifted through the night. <br />
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The camera was on a star tracker, the Star Adventurer Mini, to follow the sky and keep the stars more or less stationary. A slight drift in the tracking motion has made the stars trail slightly. But having the tracker follow the sky means the ground was blurred, as well as sky content such as clouds and light pollution glows. Thus the streaks in the sky. The ground image comes from a single exposure in the middle of the sequence, layered in and masked. Gaps in the satellite trails are from the 1-second interval between exposures. Stacked with the now-discontinued Advanced Stacker Plus actions.

All-Night Satellites (June 1-2, 2022...jpg

A passage of a Starlink satellite train (in this case of Starlink set G4-15) on May 16, 2022. The exposure was 3 seconds, and so the satellites' motion has blurred the individual satellites in the string into a longer streak. But this is some 50 satellites traveling in a line, as they appeared about 3 days after launch. The night before they were bunched closer together and were much brighter. Here they were about magnitude 3. They were magnitude 1 the night before. They appear here below Leo, heading toward Spica at far left. A few other short streaks from other satellites are also visible. The Moon was just rising and lighting the sky at this time.<br />
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This is a single exposure with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at f/2.8 and 15mm and EOS Ra at ISO 6400. It is part of a short time-lapse set.

Starlink Satellite Train (May 16, 20...jpg

$This is a stack of images demonstrating the number of satellites passing through the field of a wide-field telescope over a little more an hour. The field frames the Coma Berenices star cluster. This is from my home at 51° North, a latitude more prone to seeing satellites lit by the Sun well into the evening, if not all night closer to summer solstice. Most trails are north-south so they are likely NOT Starlink satellites but polar orbiting satellites. Interesting that the trails have different colours, likely from their solar panels or other structures reflecting blue and gold tints. This is a stack of 12 x 6-minute exposures started in deep twilight (thus the blue sky background) on April 24, 2022, stacked (with Maximum stack mode) to add the exposures together so the trails accumulate, rather than a median stack mode to eliminate the trails as would normally be done. This was with the Sharpstar 61 EDPH II refractor at f/4.5 and Canon EOS Ra at ISO 800 for a field of 7.5° x 5°, so similar to binoculars.$

Satellites { 114 images } Created 19 Feb 2011

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