Mystery solved
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:59 am
This post has nothing to do with butterflies, but I know a lot of folks on these forums enjoy the night sky, so please forgive the distraction.
The other night, while I was photographing white-letter hairstreak caterpillars, I noticed a stream of what looked like near-earth satellites moving past. There was a plane too. I pointed flightradar-24 at them and not even the plane showed up, implying it was a military plane from a local base. I'm used to strange things in the sky here, being so close to (ex) US airbases but the stream of satellites was really weird. So I pointed my camera at them, handheld, and took a shot, just in case I was witnessing something extraordinary. I didn't have my tripod with me unfortunately, but I have a very steady hand.
Today I read that Elon Musk is in the process of putting several thousand low-orbit satellites into the sky, to the fury of many astronomers, whose deep-sky long-exposure photography is likely to be compromised.
Here's my photo. The exposure time is 1 sec but the fixed stars still appear pointlike (proving the yogic stillness of my hands!
):
The more distant satellites leave a shorter trail simply because they are further away (and the angle on them is flatter). I think the thicker line on the left, out of line with the rest, might be the plane.
This is the same shot zoomed out to show more context, with some trees visible:
Something to look out for during these lockdown nights ...
Guy
The other night, while I was photographing white-letter hairstreak caterpillars, I noticed a stream of what looked like near-earth satellites moving past. There was a plane too. I pointed flightradar-24 at them and not even the plane showed up, implying it was a military plane from a local base. I'm used to strange things in the sky here, being so close to (ex) US airbases but the stream of satellites was really weird. So I pointed my camera at them, handheld, and took a shot, just in case I was witnessing something extraordinary. I didn't have my tripod with me unfortunately, but I have a very steady hand.
Today I read that Elon Musk is in the process of putting several thousand low-orbit satellites into the sky, to the fury of many astronomers, whose deep-sky long-exposure photography is likely to be compromised.
Here's my photo. The exposure time is 1 sec but the fixed stars still appear pointlike (proving the yogic stillness of my hands!
):The more distant satellites leave a shorter trail simply because they are further away (and the angle on them is flatter). I think the thicker line on the left, out of line with the rest, might be the plane.
This is the same shot zoomed out to show more context, with some trees visible:
Something to look out for during these lockdown nights ...
Guy
