How bad is starlink for Astrophotography?

[Stonius]

I've seen a lot of grumbling about it, and to be honest, it's been many months since I've managed to get out in the field again, so I don't have any direct evidence to play with.


I'm also aware that satellite trails were an issue *before starlink came along, and there were already advanced tools for dealing with them, so maybe it's not much of an issue after all?



So does it make much difference, really? Or is it a total game-chager? Is astrophotography ruined forever?


Markus

[Nikolas]

No
sigma kappa will sort out those trails in processing

[Stonius]

Thanks, that's kind of what I thought.


Cheers


Markus

[billdan]

I believe the next batch of Starlink satellites are painted matt black and the theory is they should not reflect sunlight back to earth.

They will still block whatever is behind them though. My theory is, instead of white lines in your image you will get black lines.
Dithering should eliminate them when stacking multiple subs.

[multiweb]

Black lines? :lol: How does that work?

[billdan]

My train of thought was:- say you were imaging the Rosette which fills the CCD sensor, if a matt black Starlink Sat' passed through, it would block the photons from the Rosette and be a black line.

Forget it I'm nuts :D, once the Satellite has passed, the photons from the Rosette will override the black line.

[multiweb]

:thumbsup: Now you see the light you're back with us. :lol:

[RB]

That’s a great line Marc.

:lol: :D

[cannon_gray]

The huge problem for astrophotography is the brightness they produce, but Elon Musk is solving the problem for the next part of launching satellites.

[mandragara]

It's not as simple as painting them black. It's hard to cool down in space and painting a satellite black might cause issues with overheating.

I think the issue is easy to work around with processing and developments on that front. The biggest threat to amateur astronomy is light pollution, especially the growth in broadband LED light pollution.

[Zuts]

Elon may be painting his satellites black, but will all the other companies proposing similar constellations do the same?

[multiweb]

I got starlinked early morning checking some of the subs I did on the Rosette but it didn't seem to affect the end result although I had enough integration time to reject it. It was pretty intense and dense though for about 20min. Gotta make a video of it and post.

[cannon_gray]

SpaceX sets VisorSats to each satellite in order to get rid of the problem. It helps reduce the magnitude of the flare enough that it would be tricky to see them with the naked eye. But if the numbers are correct, even standard birdwatching binoculars would still register Starlink satellites, and considering ground-based astronomy uses telescopes to look at dim objects over large durations of time, there still is a problem.

[multiweb]

Here it is. All the vertical lines are likely starlink trails. This happened over a period of 1h I believe.

https://vimeo.com/501594583

[Startrek]

I don’t worry to much about satellite trails
You do lose a few subs if you can be bothered to ditch them and stacking and processing software in the future will be designed to handle the ever growing numbers of bugs wizzing around our little planet
It’s not going to stop me imaging or diminish the excitement and fun I get out of it
My 2 cents ......