Lights out over the South East anyone ?
 

After doing a few very late flights I noticed some lights and thought they were other aircraft. Flying South they appear to be over the Tasman Sea. Light intensity varies from bright until they disappear and then reappear some time later. They appear to be turning and I have counted up to 4 at time.
When I asked other pilots they too had seen them on numerous occassions. Apparently this is not new. Does anyone have any idea what these are ?

UFO’s in a racetrack pattern with varying light intensity? Appearing to fade in and out? They are (usually) starlink satellite flares.

Ask Freddie Valentich, he had experience with lights over Bass Strait

Yes that is how it appears. Seen out of Bne and Ool heading South. Apparently not seen from the ground.

Starlink constellation. It's the internet (and soon to be cellular) connectivity through satellites. Sometimes you'll see them as a close line of about 20-25 dots across the sky which are the newly launched satellites slowly drifting apart every orbit.
https://satellitemap.space/

They are inclined orbits so they will appear to change direction as they reach their southern-most latitude which is 53S for most of them.

We've been seeing them over the Atlantic and Pacific, usually in a racetrack which makes sense for it to be Elon.

What's been throwing us are the groups (4+) that either converge or diverge, both in the horizontal and vertical, usually very close together.

Thats curious . So its not just SE Aus. That is exactly what these lights do . It takes away the symmetry. Its hard to imagine satellites manoeuvring in this way. The changing light intensity between the lights is also a variable.

Long thread running here.

https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/...0-30-west.html

Yeah I’ve seen them. I couldn’t logically explain them. Not the starlink train. Changing track right to left and on different occasions left to right. Different intensities. Spotted westbound over the Tasman on Auckland Melbourne and Auckland Sydney tracks.

Please just listen to the much more knowledgeable people: they’re Starlink satellites crossing near the horizon with sunlight hitting them at maximum reflection, hence the fade in and fade out.

Its not aliens or secret squirrel military stuff.

Even the most educated and professional people just want to believe.... it's all a conspiracy bwahahahaha :}

Anyways, it's on YouTube so it must be true!

I’ve seen them over the Southern Ocean near midnight local time. How would the knowledgeable people explain the timing of that?

At what time of the year? Presumably sometime between say October and March?

Genuinely can’t remember. The links to other threads on this subject provide some plausible explanations re starlink. Still not convinced however.

Seeing a satellite illuminated by the sun when you're in darkness is a matter of trigonometry that is to a large part dependent on the altitude of the satellite and how far the observation point is from the day/night terminator. I can recall reading somewhere that for Starlink orbits, the distance to the terminator is 2,000 km or so. Given the Earth's inclination, that means that depending on the time of the year, at far southern (and northern) latitudes it is possible to see the Starlink trains at times like midnight.

No, it's not just SE Aus, it's global. Anywhere you can see a satellite approaching/departing 53 deg lat you can see them appearing to behave in this way.

They are not manoeuvring. They are in an inclined orbit which takes them to 53 lat and then away again. It might look like they are manoeuvring but they are not. They are in an inclined orbit which takes them to 53 degrees latitude. Different intensities can be explained by the solar reflection off their solar panels.

They are not changing track, they are in an inclined orbit which may make them look like they are changing track. Different intensities can be explained by the variation in solar reflection off their solar panels.

As I said earlier:

You can see them all here: https://beta.starlink.sx - the bulk of them are in the 53 deg inclined orbit but a few are in different orbits. The so-called "polar" orbits are actually 97 deg inclined orbits which are slightly retrograde and are chosen due to the way they will cross the same points at the same time each solar day (also known as heliosynchronous orbits). This was done to attempt to provide service to polar regions with sat-sat laser links which needed ground uplink at some point in the orbit. There is always a chance you might see one of these sats at the same time which might persuade you that these sats are defying the laws of newtonian motion. They aren't.

So…you’re saying they are on an inclined orbit?

So everything is ok with these lights? .Has any official body ever given these events an official verdict ! Official bodies been contacted and asked for an explanation ?
Or is this just pprune speculative space scientists explaining these lights.