![]() ![]() The satellites are visible because they are high enough to reflect sunlight even in the middle of the night, as the sequences each end about 11:30 to midnight local time.īut in this video the satellites are not flaring - this is their normal brightness. You’ll also see some flashing or pulsing satellites - they are likely tumbling objects, perhaps spent rocket boosters. You’ll notice some satellites travelling diagonally - they are not geosats. From a site in the southern hemisphere the geosat belt would appear north of the celestial equator. So parallax makes the geosat belt appears south of the celestial equator in my sky. That’s because I live north of the equator of the Earth, at a latitude of 51° north. In this video, however, they appear about 5° to 7° south of the celestial equator (which runs through the famous Belt of Orion off frame at top). The green box is the field of view of the telescope (shown below) that I used to take the time-lapses. This chart from SkySafari shows the belt of geosats through southern Orion with the satellites identified. ![]() The region of sky in Orion below the Orion Nebula (the object at top) lies south of the line that bisects the sky into northern and southern halves called the “celestial equator.” Most geostationary satellites also orbit in Earth’s equatorial plane and so appear along a belt near the celestial equator in the sky. But in reality, it is the stars that are in motion behind the satellites. What would normally be satellites fixed in one spot in the sky (after all, they are called “geostationary” for a reason) instead trail into short streaks traveling from west to east (right to left) in the frame. ![]() The camera is on a mount that is tracking the sky as it turns from east to west, so the stars are staying still. ![]()
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