Abstract
The impact of large-scale constellations of satellites, is a concern for ground-based astronomers. In recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of satellites in low-Earth orbit and this trend is set to continue. The large number of satellites increases the probability that one will enter the field of view of a ground-based telescope at the right solar angle to appear bright enough that it can corrupt delicate measurements. We present a new tool ‘Astrosat’ that will project satellite orbits onto the RA/Dec. coordinate system for a given observer location and time and field of view. This enables observers to mitigate the effects of satellite trails through their images by either avoiding the intersection, post-processing using the information as a prior or shuttering the observation for the duration of the transit. We also provide some analysis on the apparent brightness of the largest of the constellations, Starlink, as seen by a typical observatory and as seen with the naked eye. We show that a naked eye observer can typically expect to see a maximum of 5 Starlink satellites at astronomical twilight, when the sky is dark. With the intended 40 000 satellites in the constellation that number would increase to 30.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1848-1853 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
Volume | 509 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 20 Oct 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 17 Nov 2021 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- light pollution
- methods: analytical
- methods: observational
- site testing
- space vehicles