27/08/2023
In their own words ...
On August 18, I was with a group who were observing at Natural Bridge State Park, a dark site in western Virginia. The skies were very good.
Among other things, we saw a train of eight fourth magnitude Starlink satellites traverse Scorpius, passing near Antares. Later in the evening, whenever I pointed my binoculars towards the northern sky, every sixty seconds I saw 1, 2, or 3 satellites – presumably Starlink satellites – cross the field taking 13 seconds to do so. They all were either 6th or 7th magnitude.
All very interesting. But this led me to consider ...
Since the sky has 42,000 square degrees and when they are all finally positioned in 5 years or so, the constellation satellites will total 100,000 – giving 2.5 satellites for every square degree. The bowl of the Big Dipper covers about 42 square degrees in the sky. This means that the Dipper's bowl will always contain about 100 seventh magnitude – or brighter – satellites slowly moving in different directions. These will be visible in binoculars when it is dark, and when sunlight is able to illuminate them, i.e., for a couple of hours after evening twilight ends and before morning twilight commences, and during most of the night between the ten weeks before and after the summer solstice.
Can you imagine pointing common 10x50 binoculars northward and always seeing upwards of seventy 7th magnitude points of light moving across the field? You won't have to imagine this for much longer. You soon will be able to witness it yourself.
Are we near the end of binocular observing as we have come to know it?
.. John Goss
