[HN Gopher] Starlink Satellites Tracker ___________________________________________________________________ Starlink Satellites Tracker Author : danielsht Score : 98 points Date : 2021-05-07 20:26 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (findstarlink.com) (TXT) w3m dump (findstarlink.com) | erwinh wrote: | For a 3d view of the satellites in orbit check out: | https://space-search.io/?search=starlink | callumprentice wrote: | This is my favorite Starlink tracker - also has a nice | integration with Google Street View and shows you exactly where | to look. https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink | | EDIT: Removed "past times" parameter as suggested in comments. | Also note you can remove also see loads of other satellites with | an unadorned URL : https://james.darpinian.com/satellites | modeless wrote: | Thanks! I suggest removing the showPastTimes parameter from the | link: https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink | callumprentice wrote: | I wondered about that but I wasn't able to see the Street | View integration without it - I think you're right though - | better without the past ones. Thank you. | [deleted] | bowmessage wrote: | We are polluting our night skies and dark places. | Kiro wrote: | So what? What is the higher purpose of not "polluting" the | night sky? | anonyxyz wrote: | It's introducing a fuck ton of low orbit debris that is | already interfering with astronomical research. Satellites | that fail or break are stuck up there. | vultour wrote: | Defunct low orbit satellites are not a giant issue as they | deorbit relatively quickly. | Diederich wrote: | Go outside this evening if the sky is clear. If you're anywhere | between 30 degrees and 60 degrees, there are multiple starlink | satellites in your line of sight all the time. | | Can you point them out? No, they're invisible at their | operational altitude. | User23 wrote: | That depends on how dark the area is. I heard that in a | Bortle 5 or lower area they are naked eye visible, which | really sucks for stargazers. Especially since some of the | more interesting naked eye observations have to be done using | peripheral vision. | Diederich wrote: | I've been unable to see them in class 2 areas. | | I'm a pretty ardent stargazer. | Diederich wrote: | I know that these sats will affect many telescopic | observations, but that's been happening a long time. | | I understand that this interference will end up being | several times more frequent. However, for many years, | satellite streaks have been algorithmically removed from | observations. It's possible that those algorithms will need | to be upgraded. | | That's a small price to pay in exchange for robust and high | speed Internet becoming available to huge numbers of people | all over the world. | User23 wrote: | I have a Starlink deposit down and I still have my doubts | about the merits of that trade-off. My reasoning is | amateur astronomy is ruined anyhow so I may as well be | able to stream Netflix on more devices and as a side | benefit tech monopolies will be able to further extend | their influence. | | Which, frankly, feels rather sordid. | | And in any event Starlink is nothing compared to the | assholes planning satellite billboards. | Causality1 wrote: | Even if they weren't, we can't have everything. Do you know | how crippled a huge chunk of the world's population is | without robust internet access? I have two telescopes in my | house and I would give up looking at the sky forever if it | meant my cousin's kids got to attend Zoom class instead of | having to work from take-home materials. | Diederich wrote: | Exactly. | | This is akin to people complaining about how wind mills | ruin their views of things. | | I know that these sats will affect many telescopic | observations, but that's been happening a long time. In | most cases, satellite streaks are algorithmically removed. | walrus01 wrote: | I'm far more concerned about atmospheric particles (as measured | by PM2.5, etc) and air pollution than I am about satellites. | | Go visit New Delhi or Lahore in mid winter and give us your | subjective opinion of the air quality. | | https://www.google.com/search?q=delhi+air+pollution&client=u... | reaperducer wrote: | It's interesting to see so many of these satellites are listed as | "Bright" in my area. | | Before the launches, the HN crowd promised repeatedly that nobody | would be able to see these satellites and they would not change | the night sky at all, and that that looking up in wonder is only | something that old people and luddites do, because nothing is | more important than global always-on sacred holy internet access. | jmu1234567890 wrote: | They are only bright for an initial period after launch. | tectonic wrote: | We also have a coverage map for Starlink: | https://orbitalindex.com/feature/starlink-coverage/ | 8jy89hui wrote: | I like this map, I just wish it didn't start with auto-rotate | on. Auto-rotate just makes it hard to see as the satellites | travel around the world. | GekkePrutser wrote: | Wow those are few and far between. Isn't the idea of starlink | that you'd have internet all the time? | | Edit: Aahhh I see now, it's meant for stargazers (well, | starlinkgazers) and it only shows the visible passes. Got it. I'm | used to using sat trackers for ham radio purposes and they show | all passes, that's why I was confused. | [deleted] | olex wrote: | It also shows a single "pass event" for a launch of 60 | satellites, the pass alone takes minutes as a long visible | chain of sats goes overhead. Really damn cool to see. | GekkePrutser wrote: | Indeed those are super cool! I might go out to see one of | those once the curfew is lifted here. | ortusdux wrote: | For the record, these satellites are inserted in groups of 60 at | half their orbital height. They have onboard thrusters to boost | up to the final operational orbit. There is high atmospheric drag | at lower altitudes, so they deploy their solar panels | horizontally during this boost period, which usually lasts less | than a month. These horizontal panels reflect the sun just after | sunset and just before dawn. Once they are at their final height | they rotate the panels so they are much less reflective. | Basically, the constellation's effect on the night sky is | proportional to the number of launches in the last month, not the | total number in orbit. | Rebelgecko wrote: | >Basically, the constellation's effect on the night sky is | proportional to the number of launches in the last month, not | the total number in orbit. | | For what it's worth, in order for the constellation to reach | steady state the number of launches in the last month will need | to be proportional to the total # of orbit. So if the | constellation has 42,000 satellites and the satellites last 10 | years on average (IMO that's an optimistic lifespan), you need | to launch around 350/month just to maintain the size of the | constellation. | amackera wrote: | Thanks for the info! | ortusdux wrote: | Absolutely! Things will be really interesting when they can | use Starships to launch batches. I've seen estimates that | they could launch 600 starlink satellites at a time. They | could theatrically also launch fewer, but put them all the | way into their final orbit, skipping the few weeks of light | pollution. | grecy wrote: | > _They could theatrically also launch fewer, but put them | all the way into their final orbit_ | | I wonder if they might choose to do this so the sats keep | more of their onboard fuel, and will be able to keep | themselves in orbit a bit longer before the inevitable re- | entry burn up. | trothamel wrote: | Re-entry is a bit of a feature, though - should a | satellite be DOA, it will be in a low orbit and burn up | faster. | thereisnospork wrote: | I'd _guess_ it is more efficient to have them boost | themselves, so that they act as an additional rocket | stage. (and so not need the delta V to elevate and then | de-elevate starship 's orbit.) | Dylan16807 wrote: | That's a tradeoff that could be made, but the onboard ion | thrusters are about 5x as efficient as the rocket. They'd | probably be much better off making the onboard tanks a | bit larger and launching to the same low orbit. | cryptoz wrote: | > Basically, the constellation's effect on the night sky is | proportional to the number of launches in the last month, not | the total number in orbit. | | For the major brightness issues sure, but they are not | invisible or undetectable while in operation. Surely the | effects are proportional to both the recent launches and the | whole size. | | I think it's a bit early to dismiss the whole sky effect of | multiple Starlink-style constellations in operation. | | Also isn't Starlink intending to do launches for the rest of | time? There is always a value for the last month of launches- | they'll never stop launching right? | | Just thinking out loud. | ortusdux wrote: | The current satellite version (VisorSat) has a magnitude of | about 6, which is generally considered to be the limit of | what is visible with the naked eye in a light-pollution free | area. | | Once you start using any optics they will be visible. | | https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2101/2101.00374.pdf#:~:te. | ... | | https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/what-is-stellar- | ma... | | I might sit down and do the math to see how 1500 satellites | at mag 6 compares to 60 at mag 2. | | > I think it's a bit early to dismiss the whole sky effect of | multiple Starlink-style constellations in operation. | | I wasn't trying to dismiss their effect, just address the | people who say "you think those 60 are bad, imagine when | there are 20,000", or "there go the Americans, ruining the | night sky for the whole world". | | I have no idea how oneweb or blue origin will handle this | issue. | | > Also isn't Starlink intending to do launches for the rest | of time? | | Their satellites are designed for a 5 year lifespan. Without | constant boosts, they will deorbit and burn up fully in the | atmosphere. This is great, because they will not become space | junk, and they can't cause the dreaded kessler syndrome. The | downside is that they will need to be constantly replenished. | Hopefully this will be streamlined when they can launch 600 | at a time, reducing the number of launches by a factor of 10. | smeyer wrote: | >I might sit down and do the math to see how 1500 | satellites at mag 6 compares to 60 at mag 2. | | Every 5 astronomical magnitudes corresponds to a factor of | 100 difference in brightness, so magnitude 2 is (100^0.2)^4 | or about 40 times brighter than magnitude 6. So they're | pretty similar, 1500 satellites at magnitude 6 are about | 2/3 as bright as 60 satellites at magnitude 2. | sneak wrote: | There is also the (no help at the moment) fact that the more | money that Starlink's parent company makes, the more likely | we are to get the world's cheapest heavy lift orbital booster | soon, and the more likely we are to soon have multiple large | orbital telescopes that far exceed ground-based capabilities. | | Basically, if SpaceX makes it, we'll probably have a | Starship-launched lunar observatory quite soon, in the grand | scheme of things. | | This doesn't help the situation now, although there is so | much screaming from the anti-Musk people as well as the pro- | Musk people that it's hard to tell what the actual impact of | the now-somewhat-albedo-mitigated starlink v.whatever | satellites are. All of the coverage is breathless sky-is- | falling stuff. | | In any case, the situation is temporary. Either SpaceX makes | it and we get a far side of Luna observatory and LEO/MEO | telescopes besides, or they don't and in a few years Starlink | all falls down and burns. | mfer wrote: | I'm reminded of Earth orbit from the film Wall-E for some | reason. | mlindner wrote: | That's distinctly completely impossible in this case. | marmot777 wrote: | Some friends said they saw it go over my town last night but I | missed it. I'm stoked there's a tool to track it. | betwixthewires wrote: | There are over a thousand up there. You can see individual | satellites now just by looking at the clear sky at night for a | while, you'll find some. I see a couple of them almost every | night. | | Someone told me there was a line of them last night, probably | from the most recent launch, but I couldn't find them. | colordrops wrote: | Why is there a need for a starlink-specific tracker when there | are plenty of general satellite trackers that also include all | the starlink satellites? | sand500 wrote: | I personally like https://www.heavens-above.com/ | | Give it a location and it will tell you all the bright objects | that should be visible | antonzabirko wrote: | Soon only the super rich will have sunlight, with satellite | networks blocking out the sky in other areas. | gavin_gee wrote: | text output? where's the AR viewer of starlink overlayed on the | sky!? | virtuallynathan wrote: | One of the coolest starlink specific trackers is starlink.sx. | fasteddie31003 wrote: | I was just outside randomly when I saw the train of lights. It | was honestly one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. | spaceywilly wrote: | Same here! Randomly got out of the car last night at saw a | string of them cruising through the sky. It's really impressive | to see, I'll encourage my friends to use this site to find out | when they can see them | hellbannedguy wrote: | I couldn't sleep two nights ago, and went outside at around 5 | am. I looked up, and was astonished. It was a full moon I | think, and the satellights looked magnificent. Those satellites | will steer a lot of young kids into science. I was to young to | fully appreciate us going to the moon, but seeing a perfectly | spaced row of "stars" above my home while the neighborhood was | dead silent was something I will always remember. | | This was in the Bay Area. I'm living in Fairfax now. | | I have been following Starlink since. I haven't had much luck. | I thought their telemetry could be configured within seconds, | but I guess their are other variables according to Startlink? | Oh yea---there is part of me hoping man doesn't overdo it | though. This was great, but thousands would be another story. | carabiner wrote: | Heat sinks are holding steady! | DataJunkie wrote: | While I won't subscribe (I have fiber), I am excited about what | this might mean for the future. It would amazing to improve the | technology enough to replace 4G/5G dongles. It sounds like the | technology relies on being in a somewhat fixed position though. | gambiting wrote: | I honestly can't believe Starlink is allowed to do this. It's an | absolute travesty, polluting the view of the sky for ALL people | on Earth to an absolutely unprecedented degree, for profit of an | American corporation. Absolutely despise it, wish all countries | of the world came together and demanded the deployments to stop. | herewulf wrote: | I'm curious if you say the same thing about airplanes (which | aren't exclusively American either). They are also quite noisy. | gambiting wrote: | Think about it - when Starlink is fully operational there | won't be a single place left on earth without several of | their satellites always in view. The same definitely cannot | be said about planes. Also countries retain full sovereignty | to decide whether to allow planes flying above them - same | cannot be said about satellites. Countries which cannot even | use Starlink are having their night sky polluted by it. | mlindner wrote: | Poland ceded that sovereignty when they signed the Outer | Space Treaty. Poland CAN use Starlink, SpaceX just hasn't | offered service there yet (they only recently translated | their documentation into French and support is still only | in English). The service is still in beta as things are | still in development. Service is available in the United | States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, | and Germany. | dawnerd wrote: | I'm be more upset about light pollution than tiny satellites. | jp42 wrote: | yet another comment without actually putting effort to | understand spacex's reply to "polluting" night sky argument. | Isinlor wrote: | You would have to convince UK that owns 42% equity of the | OneWeb company that plans to launch initially 648-satellite | constellation. | | You will probably sooner see EU, Russia and China decide that | it is their strategic interest to have their own | constellations. As it was with GPS. Currently we have the | United States' Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's Global | Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), China's BeiDou | Navigation Satellite System (BDS) and the European Union's | Galileo. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneWeb | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneWeb_satellite_constellation | ChrisClark wrote: | Oh, just wait a week or so, then they'll be higher and not | visible like this. Just like every other launch. | | Your 'absolute travesty' is only temporary. | fighterpilot wrote: | Easy to say when you're probably sitting in a rich city | somewhere with a perfectly good internet connection | gambiting wrote: | Starlink is polluting the sky for people who cannot buy its | services, and who don't appreciate yet another American | corporation invading into their lives, this time taking the | very view of the night sky. | fighterpilot wrote: | Then tax SpaceX for the light-pollution externality until | they fix it (which they say they're going to do). I don't | think depriving rural communities and poor countries of | access to the internet is really the best solution to such | a non-problem. | gambiting wrote: | What are you talking about?? Here in Poland(which isn't a | poor country!) You can't even buy Starlink here, our | astronomical organisations are already complaining about | the pollution of the sky, but how can Poland tax an | American corporation polluting our sky???? | | So the question should be - how can an American | corporation deprive other countries of accessible view of | the sky for profit and get away with it? Because it | _might_ be accessible by everyone eventually? That 's | frankly not good enough. Elon Musk isn't doing this as a | charity, but even if it was it still wouldn't be | acceptable. | fighterpilot wrote: | It's the same argument as for a carbon tax. It's | imperfect, because the benefit only flows to the local | government (when the commons is globally shared, as you | point out), but it's the best _practical_ solution since | it broadly aligns incentives with that of the commons. | | Your solution to simply deprive rural communities/poor | countries of internet access is a _non-starter_. What you | 're ignoring is that the positive externalities of the | tech _vastly, vastly outweigh_ the negative (and | supposedly fixable) externalities. Not to mention it 's a | take that's rather selfish since you're not the one that | pays the price of banning this tech. | gambiting wrote: | But Starlink isn't, wasn't, and never will be "for | providing internet to poorer countries". It's always | going to be first and foremost about selling internet to | people in wealthy countries in areas without good local | internet options. Are we really pretending that people in | "poor countries" can afford the cost of the equipment and | the subscription? Or that Elon Musk is doing this as some | kind of charity? | | The main problem that I have here is that the uniformity | of a full Starlink setup means the entire earth is | covered in it, and literally no one else except for | Americans has any say in it. That's what's absolutely not | cool in my opinion. | drusepth wrote: | >It's always going to be first and foremost about selling | internet to people in wealthy countries in areas without | good local internet options. | | [citation needed] | fighterpilot wrote: | > selling internet to people in wealthy countries in | areas without good local internet options | | Even if I grant you that it's not going to be about | supplying internet to poorer countries, this reason alone | is sufficient. Depriving rural communities of internet | over such a small negative externality is a non-starter. | | > literally no one else except for Americans has any say | in it | | Poland emits significant amounts of carbon pollution, | which impacts me, and I have no say in it. | | _Some_ negative externalities in the global commons is | inevitable. You, personally, are contributing to that. | Your weather and GPS satellites are contributing to it. | | The solution therefore can't be a puritanical "I will not | allow _any_ global externalities whatsoever. ". It's an | impractical non-starter and a rule that nobody anywhere | follows nor should they try to follow it. | SquibblesRedux wrote: | Every now and then I need to compile lists of locations for this | or that application. The drop-down of locations in this tracker | is very interesting. Does anyone know how the list was compiled? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-05-07 23:00 UTC)