New satellites are messing up our night sky
To me, dark skies are one of the main benefits of boondocking in remote territory -- it's a lot of work to get there, but the stars are astonishing. So this article is depressing -- apparently, Elo...
Forum Discussion
Horsedoc wrote:
How does one determine a star from a satellite if the satellite in is stationary orbit?
Very good question. I do astro photography and these kind of Geosynchronous satellites don't move is right, but the stars do. When I do long exposure images I am tracking at the same rate the stars move, actually as the earth rotates, and these satellites don't. So they end up being streaks in my exposures. Most of my final images are made up of many 10-30 min long exposures so with software we can remove these as random noise since they do not occur in the same location in each exposure. This will become extremely difficult when there are many objects in each exposure, and even though they may be too dim to see with the naked eye, my sensitive CCD camera will indeed pick them up.
So yes this is a major concern to many astronomers, both professional and amateurs alike.
Dean
