Well, I can't be all that far from you and on the strength of the met office prediction, I've set my alarm... :) I'll have to wander outside though.

Agreed..the first train was interesting, now....

Geostationary orbits are a long way away. I'm surprised there'd be any competition for those, but of course, they're limited to a fairly narrow latitude band.

If Jeff Bezos gets his way, the darn height will be about England stood on its south coast. Mind you, Starlink looks like they'd give flight crew a start.

Well I woke up. The sky was clear and I could see plenty of stars (for the city) - but I didn't see any train.

Maybe I wasn't looking at the right angle but I assumed if it was visible it would be impossible to miss?

I did go outside to see if they were overhead, but no luck there. If they were low then there's a row of street lights that probably did for me.

Did you see it?

The useful positions in the geostationary belt are just about full, and are much prized.

The daft thing about LEOs is that anyone with enough cash can chuck as many up into orbit as they choose and there seems to be no end to the process. The only control is on the frequencies they use. Astronomers just have to accept any problems they create for now or in the future.

No, sky was clear overhead but there was a certain milkiness in the sky which obscured all but the brightest stars as you looked more towards the horizon. I reckon they should have been about 30 or 40 degrees from directly overhead. I did see one satellite that was closer overhead, apparently from an earlier Starlink launch. Think I also saw a meteor! Blackbirds and robins were all trilling away merrily!

As Sallyann says the geostationary slots are a limited resource and quite valuable.

https://space.stackexchange.com/ques...tationary-belt

Thank you Wiggy, I just followed that link and spent a good half an hour realising how dumb I am. I also spent half of that trying to work out what "Tesseral" meant. I still cannot explain it, but if the pubs were open I would drop the word in conversation with certain of my drinking group to send them off on a wild goose chase of the term :}

Gordy's link is awesome but I suspect there is a flaw. If the satellites are in Earth's shadow then I doubt they can be seen.

A few hours after deep sunset or a few hours before twilight would be the ideal viewing time methinks.

Patchy cloud around my parts but the link suggested one of the trains would pass at 8:41pm - I saw a few moving things up there but not sure if I saw the train, have to wait for a clearer night.

Starlink
 

Sorry to offend all you astronomers but... my summer cabin is at 50N-122W in lovely British Columbia. No roads, no cell service, no utilities (except what I generate with solar.) My current connection with the world is Xplornet satellite. On a good day I get 2 to 3 Mbs download. This costs $129 month. I am anxiously awaiting my Starlink "dishy". Deposit is already paid. Beta testers are showing downloads of up to 300 Mbs. Same price as Xplornet. It's an easy decision for me.

Correct, and since the starlink satellites are in Low Earth orbit the period of time you, the observer, have dark skies, and the satellites above you are being illuminated by direct sunlight can quite short.

Over the months I've found the trains aren't always that easy spot, even from a dark sky site, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if one got missed from a light polluted area.

BTW I've used the Heavens Above site for years, I know the the interface isn't perhaps that fancy but it works.

App checked. Due overhead at 04:55 onwards - how exciting; at last something to look forward to, break the terminal Covid lockdown boredom!
Alarm set 04:45.
Slept fitfully till 04:40, pre-empted alarm (senior gentlemen's reasons, dealt with that).
Put on slippers - well one slipper actually - my son's dog that we seem to have adopted recently is a chronic slipper thief.
Crept carefully through the house, using a small torch to preserve night vision and so's not to wake the other half.
Re-checked the App - They're coming, They're coming, should be right overhead in a couple of minutes!!
Carefully unlocked and slid back the patio door.
Hopped out onto the cold patio slabs, in pyjamas and the one slipper, shivering slightly.
Looked skywards....for ten minutes. Didn't see a damned thing.
Went back to bed, feeling very cold and rather silly. :rolleyes:

Yes, me too... :{

Thanks, for that, wiggy. As you say, the geostationary belt is quite full. As has been mentioned, there is potential for interference if the geo satellites get close, but there is also a risk of collision, especially when you consider that some satellites stop operating and there's nothing you can do to move them, so you have to move others out of the way. Then there's whatever some company or country used to get their satellite into that orbit and might have been discarded.

One other thing to consider is that I suspect most people think that a satellite in geostationary orbit is stationary relative to someone on Earth. They aren't. Although they generally stay within a belt and close to where they should be, they actually do all sorts of loops and strange shapes while staying close to their supposed position from an Earth-observer's perspective. Considering all that, ground-based telescopes are used to detect if any operational satellites are in danger of collision and if they are, the ground-based observations are used to let the various companies know when and where to move their satellites.

A lot of work goes on behind the scenes to keep the world in touch!

Parking space problems in space. Who would have thought it?

Think of it more like a busy marina and a couple of boats getting loose. You know where everything is, all the boats are in a confined space, but you don't know what damage will be done until those boats are brought under control. I apologize for not knowing the maritime phrasing for this. But everyone else is worried that a rogue boat might hit their boat, and given enough warning they move their boats away from danger just to be safe!

Unfortunately, it's not like when we were kids using paddle boats and the scary guy with the loud hailer shouted "Come in number 3, your time is up!".

Huh, that sounds like my first job. 10/6 a week.

Now you mention it, of course, the Inmarsat relevent to the M370 made a huge 8 with the top loop smaller than the bottom. Yes, a lot of space taken up.

:ok:



You'l know a lot or all of this, for those that don't..

https://celestrak.com/columns/v04n07/

Thanks, wiggy! I did know this stuff since I've been involved in various projects since 2014 in observing orbital debris in high-earth orbit (i.e., geosynchronous orbit) but hadn't seen that web page before. It's very good and summarises things well. It's something I will definitely use in the future if and when I need to explain orbital debris and its potential effects. I think many people concentrate on orbital debris being a problem in low-earth orbit or something that's a threat to astronauts and space stations - which of course it is - but don't consider the threat to our whole satellite communication network.

Spacex has now launched 1300 satellites out if a planned 1500, at their current launch rate that should be finished in 6-8 weeks (which is mind blowing in itself).

At which point they will reportedly switch to regular polar launches out of Vandenberg - which should provide good views in the higher latitudes.

The first 10 were launched on 24th January Transporter-1 mission which launched 133 satellites for various customers. The 10 were launched to an altitude of approximately 500-kilometers above Earth to operate in Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO).

The polar satellites transfer data between them using lasers so no ground stations are needed in the polar regions.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/26/2...rctic-military

OneWeb and SpaceX are racing to beam internet to the Arctic