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PaperclipPerfector  20d ago (text post)   1651 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 30, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I don't do as much stargazing as I'd like to, but even before Starlink I caught satellite streaks on long-duration telescope photos, and saw dots that looked too fast+smooth to be planes only to discover they were satellites, both fairly frequently.

Starlink is what gets all the attention for two reasons:

  1. They're very close to us, and brightness decreases with distance squared. They start out really bright (peak apparent magnitude 2.6 - the planets and the brightest hundredish stars are brighter but that's about it) and bunched up in "trains" of a couple dozen at a time, and they don't get separated or get dimmer (mag 5 for the first batch, dimmed to 6.3 for the first "visorsat" designs, brightened to 5.6 for the "v2 mini" design) until they've all spread out (under slow ion drives) and raised their orbits to their final altitude. (larger magnitude numbers are dimmer, and mag 6 is about the limit of what can be seen with the naked eye in a dark sky)

  2. They're very numerous. About a hundred countries have put satellites in orbit, two of them have put at least a thousand in orbit ... and yet if you add up all the non-SpaceX satellites put together, SpaceX has more now. Like 50% more if you only count active satellites. It's something like 6000 right now. They literally launched 42 more with two rockets this morning. They're a bit preoccupied with a manned mission at the moment, so they probably won't be launching a couple dozen more until (checks calendar) Wednesday.

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