OMG!
So I recall this post and the associated image which is disheartening, at best. However, as sad as it may be, in the same breath I expected I'd only be reading about this, since a telescope is something I rarely use. As mentioned in the article:
These satellites have turned out to be far more reflective than anyone, even SpaceX engineers, expected. Before Starlink, there were about 200 objects in orbit around Earth that could be seen with the unaided eye. In less than a year, SpaceX has added another 240. “These are brighter than probably 99 percent of existing objects in Earth orbit right now,” says Pat Seitzer, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan who studies orbital debris.
Okay...but I've not been able to see them, and I look for satellites and at the stars--visually unaided--every-single-night they're visible. So, I expected never to be able to.
Tonight was a better than average sky--not the best, but not bad--and right off I see an object passing. Kewl! Great, I enjoy spotting these things when I get the chance. Right behind it is another, and another, so quickly I assume they're not satellites but high-alt fighter jets. That's when I realize they're evenly spaced, and as one vanishes in the earth shadow, another pops up to the west.
At any moment there are 7-8 in the sky. A long train of satellites that does NOT stop. Out of the 170deg. of visible sky, they're covering about 90 degrees of it. They're close together...they time out at 23-24 seconds apart, but visually they're close, perhaps every 10 degrees of that 90. More so, they're incredibly bright. Each time I picked out a star to time their passing--so you know it was a relatively bright star--the Starlink satellites were brighter. For at least 15 minutes they passed. Every 23 seconds one would vanish an a new one pop up at the end of the line.
It went on so long and was so obvious and visible, after about five minutes I became bored with it. No doubt realizing in the back of my mind, I'll see this many more times in the near future. It was both fascinating and sad. More so, with my tinfoil paranoia, a little disconcerting. What if tomorrow, yours-mine-or our government simply stated... "Remember, we're--always--watching you."
And they just started...
Stuff in Space
K2