Rush Hour.....

Scott Badger:
Imaging NGC3718 last night and of 33 subs, 13 have satellite trails and 4 of those have 2 trails. A little over 2 hours imaging time, so about a satellite every 7 minutes on average..... And Musk et al. haven't even really started yet.

Clear(?) skies,
Scott

Looking at my typical rejection maps I wonder whether I should switch to imaging satellites and planes ...

Clear (!) skies
Wolfgang

Had the same thing while setting up for a wide field of the Virgo Cluster last week - one dot, then another, and another, Starlink coming to visit! At least we can get rid of the trails in processing, it's more of a challenge for our professional colleagues trying to do science. Interesting article on this subject in this week's Nature (hopefully accessible to all!) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01420-9

I fear it may get a little bit worse before it gets better.  Elon has really ramped up the frequency of Starlink launches recently.  They seem to deploy to a 350km orbit within a few days, but then those batch on any one launch take up to 5 months before they are all raised to their final (current) 550km orbit where they should be more faint.  We therefore have to live with those brighter satellite trails whilst they are going through that process.

I guess this means shorter exposure times combined with outlier rejection algorithms are the order of the day; one benefit of living in a suburban area for a change.