
Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye - sagitariusrex
https://twitter.com/Marcin_Loboz/status/1132070509246652421
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thanatos_dem
Looks a lot like the cloud ark from Neil Stevenson’s hard science fiction book
”Seveneves”.

The long of the short of it is that moon goes boom, kills life on earth,
humanity survives onboard the ISS and a flurry of small habitation pods which
are splayed out into a string so they share an orbit, but isolated in case
they get hit by space debris.

The book came out in 2015, and despite having a fictional plot, nearly all of
the science checks out.

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sharcerer
that novel was amazing. I loved the 5000 year jump too. Although I found it
difficult to visualize some of the futuristic parts. I think a movie is being
made based on the novel.

~~~
eightysixfour
Interesting, I loved the book until the jump, after that I found it to be too
ridiculous. The submarine storyline was absurd.

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sharcerer
I mainly loved the various cultural aspects, differences after the jump. The
Red vs the rest. The Red had a Soviet/Chinese vibe.

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aristophenes
Imagine all the people who have never heard about SpaceX that see these. They
will think the aliens have arrived :)

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agildehaus
[https://twitter.com/hashtag/ufo](https://twitter.com/hashtag/ufo)

Already happening.

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childintime
[https://phys.org/news/2019-05-encounters-spacex-
satellites-d...](https://phys.org/news/2019-05-encounters-spacex-satellites-
dutch-ufo.html)

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childintime
Counted 52 spots, plus an additional 2 which only appeared briefly and dimly,
a little off the track of the others. 4 or 5 dots seem to be pairs. So that
acounts for pretty much all satellites. I'd like to experience this for
myself. With 12000 of them the sky will be quite littered with them though.
Astronomy will never be the same again.

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chomp
>I’d like to experience this for myself.

Find out when the satellites pass over you!

Here's the TLE data that someone estimated:
[http://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2019/0207.html](http://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2019/0207.html)

Here's an online calculator: [https://www.satellite-
calculations.com/TLETracker/SatTracker...](https://www.satellite-
calculations.com/TLETracker/SatTracker.htm)

Plug in the TLE data, select your town or enter your coordinates, and generate
a 24 hour projection! Find a time where the elevation is higher than 10 or 20
degrees so that you can actually see it.

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childintime
Is there a map out there showing their current position? Tried n2yo.com, but
as fas as I know it isn't catalogged yet.

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chomp
No there isn't, but I saw this tool on Twitter that you can plug TLE data
into:
[https://www2.flightclub.io/dashboard](https://www2.flightclub.io/dashboard)

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mrep
Here is another video:
[https://vimeo.com/338361997](https://vimeo.com/338361997)

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clashmoore
Like morse code trying to tell us something.

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childintime
Good info on starlink: [https://wyliodrin.com/post/starlink-the-internet-of-
space](https://wyliodrin.com/post/starlink-the-internet-of-space)

6 months ago, so not accurate about the height.

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anthuman
I respect and admire the risks Musk is willing to take and am amazed that he
is able to find financial backers for his projects.

But I have to wonder whether the internet connection can be maintained during
cloudy days and what the expected upload/download speeds will be and finally
what the expected costs will be.

Affordable and globally available internet could be a game-changer. If viable,
couldn't it challenge wireless carriers and ISPs?

Also, aren't there geopolitical ramifications. Would China, Russia, EU, etc
allow their citizens to access the starlink system? Or will starlink have to
be censored, filtered and monitored in these regions?

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brad0
I’m not an expert but I don’t think clouds will affect it.

Do clouds prevent you from getting a GPS signal? (I know these satellites are
LEO but I don’t think that should matter)

~~~
Rebelgecko
GPS is a bit different. It's uses multiple frequencies, so receivers can
correct from some of the water vapor attenuation. I suspect that GPS
satellites also broadcast at a much higher power than the starlink terminals
will. Starlink is also using a much higher frequencies: GPS is around 1ghz.
Starlink is in the 12-40 range since it used Ku and Ka band. Ku and Ka are
much more susceptible to problems from moisture in the atmosphere. That's
actually why K Band was split into Ku(under) and Ka(above). The middle parts
around 22ghz are not useful for communicating through lots of atmosphere
because so much of the signal gets absorbed by water (sidenote-- NASA and NOAA
use signals around 22ghz to measure water vapor in the atmosphere. That's why
they're pissed that the FCC auctioned off 24ghz spectrum for 5G-- it's going
to interfere with forecasting things like hurricanes).

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sschueller
Is this only until they are in position or are going to see this everytime
they fly over?

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mikeash
You’ll be able to see them as individual dots any time they’re illuminated by
the sun when they fly over at night (like any other satellite), but they won’t
be bunched together like this.

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perilunar
Each time they launch a new batch you'll see them like this briefly. There's
100+ launches planned over the next decade.

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senectus1
is this what its always going to look like when we have 12000 of the things in
the sky?

Astronomers are going to be going _spare_

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colek42
Sending telescopes to space will be cheaper as the volume of launches increase

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CorvusCrypto
Okay that's interesting but I have to say it's also quite ugly. Is this a new
trend to cluster satellites like this? If so what advantage does it bring and
is it worth that ugly streak appearing in the night?

I get this comment is very subjective but surely I'm not the only one thinking
it's a bit of an eyesore

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dahfizz
Is it uglier than telephone poles and huge cell towers everywhere? Of all the
infrastructure humans build out, this is probably going to be one of the least
eyesore.

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CorvusCrypto
That's good then. And no I don't think it's uglier. You're right that many of
the billboards and such are ugly but I still believe this to be ugly as well
and I don't thing something being uglier invalidates it

Someone else commented something that puts me at more ease but it is worrying
at first glance.

