Comment by IncreasePosts
3 days ago
Starlink satellites are only visible to the naked eye during specific circumstances for a brief period whole they're being boosted to their final orbit.
I've seen it. It's kind of cool. 8 pale, silent dots in line moving across the sky for like 3 minutes.
I'm sure they've seen airplanes flying at night with brighter lights, and louder noises than what starlink produces, so I'm not sure how this is really a problem.
There aren't commercial airplanes out there. This was at Catalina Island which is ~25 miles off the California coast. There is very little light pollution. I think it's more the fear that the sky will be filled with those. I don't know how long after launch this was but it had been a repeat occurrence for multiple nights at that point.
I have zero problem finding numerous flights passing directly over Catalina island at night, or very close (within 20 miles @ 10k feet, which would be easily visible from the island).
globe.adsbexchange.com -> click the replay button, and then scrub to some random time after sunset in CA. Turn on flight tracks and set the speed to 100x to make the flights easier to identify.
Flights from major airlines coming from Alaska, Asia, and Hawaii seem to frequently fly directly over Catalina at night.
> I'm sure they've seen airplanes flying at night with brighter lights, and louder noises than what starlink produces, so I'm not sure how this is really a problem.
For what its worth planes generally avoid flying through designated dark sky areas.