Sunday, October 1, 2023

StarLink "Train" Passes Overhead

  Last  evening (09/30/23) Eric Elwell, a meteorologist with Spectrum 1 News, posted this on  Facebook:

"HEADS UP! The Starlink satellite “train” will make a pass just south of Ohio tonight between 8:30 to 8:34pm. If you have a (clear) view of the southern sky - check out if you can see them.
 It will look like a row of multiple bright lights perfectly lined up… moving quickly from the west-northwest to the east-southeast.
If you get pictures or a video, send them my way!"

 It was about  8:30 PM when I read the post but I hurried to find my tripod and grabbed my phone  and headed out into the backyard  where we have an open view of the western and southern sky. I wasn't there but a minute or two when I saw the train coming from the NW.


 That was actually the last pictures I  took and it best shows that the train consists of individual satellites, some still fairly closely spaced and others beginning to spread out.

 I believe this train is from SpaceX's launch of Friday evening. Their post:

On Friday, September 29 at 10:00 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This was the 10th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched CRS-24, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F, OneWeb 1, SES-18 and SES-19, and now six Starlink missions.
[Credit: SpaceX]

Here are the pictures I took in the order they were shot:


 This first shot shows the train approaching from the NW.


 Now shooting almost due west, the SkyLink satellites  are centered while a jet approached from the south (below) enters the frame.


 These shots were taken in "Night Mode" with  my Google Pixel 4A w/ 5G cell phone. It was placed in a bracket on a tripod.


 This is the final tripod  shot.


 As the train passed as nearly overhead as possible, I removed the phone from the tripod and shot this handheld. The train resolves into clusters of satellites (SpaceX said the launch contained 22) rather than a continuous  streak of lights. The first picture posted is a crop taken from this image,

 I've heard about this train many times but this is the first I've seen it. To say the least it is otherworldly.




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