Three Satellite Eclipse

I usually enjoy seeing the geostationary satellites fall into the shadow of the Earth. Considering I have a dobsonian telescope, it’s usually a pretty simple shot because I simply set it and forget it. My telescope mount doesn’t move, but neither do the satellites!

This eclipse season was no different and I gave it a try. This time I tried setting up as early in the night as was physically possible so I could see the full ~9-10 hours of satellite motion. I decided to take 10 second exposures to limit the number of files to process but also to brighten the satellites while dimming the background stars.

My laptop ended up with a few thousand JPEGs which I lightly edited in DarkTable. I mostly adjusted levels and did some light denoise filtering. DarkTable also added the timestamp and watermark for my name. To make a video I used trusty old Windows Movie Maker.

I’m not totally sure why the satellites keep drifting towards the bottom of the frame, I think that might be my telescope slowly sagging as it shakes with some wind.

This isn’t a new shot for me, but it’s always exciting to physically see the satellites I work on. Usually I only interact with them in telemetry plots, it’s nice to sometimes remember they’re actually giant machines in the sky!