MnAstro Forums

The string of Starlink satellites launched on Saturday the 15th will pass over tonight beginning at 9:21, starting from the west, crossing the northern sky about 30 degrees above the horizon, ending in the east.

It will repeat at 11:02 pm, this time traveling from the northwest, highest again about 30 degrees in the north, setting in the east-northeast.

Third pass is highest, starting at 12:42 am in the northwest, getting as high as 64 degrees in the north-northeast and fading into the Earth's shadow just after passing zenith.

The ISS will also pass over at 9:14 pm going from the southwest towards the northeast, peaking at 58 degrees in the SSE. It reappears at 10:52 PM, this time going west to roughly east, peaking at only 35 degrees in the northern part of the sky.

Thank you, Steve, I'll check it out!

Darn. I don't know how it looked for anyone else, but it was a bust for me. I was at CGO for the 9:21 pass but the sky was too bright. Since the Moon was pretty bright I decided to head toward home, and tried getting off the freeway in the suburbs to get the 11:02 pass, but missed the time by a bit and there were a LOT of street lights in the area where I pulled off.

At least I saw the ISS during its 9:14 pass. I also had a handheld ham radio handy talkie and a homemade Yagi antenna and was able to listen to hams making contacts using the cross-band ham repeater radio on the ISS. I could hear them all the way as it passed from the western horizon to the east.

I tried for the Starlink train at 11:02, but didn't see anything. Oh well...

I didn't see the 921 pass either. Thinking the sun wasn't down enough

I caught this Starlink train on Sunday night at 23:02 and caught it on a startrails picture I had setup

From Top to Bottom where the trails start on the west (left) side of the image

Top: 23:41 05/16/2021 ISS Pass
One down from top: 00:43 Unknown but I think this is the Starlink train again
One up from bottom: 23:02 pass of the Starlink train (I saw this one myself, it was interesting... the first half of the train was much dimmer than the second half)
Bottom: 01:18 05/17/2021 ISS pass

Steve, what do you use as an information source? I've found https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ to be pretty reliable. It seems to match up with the god's eye view http://celestrak.com/ (remembering to correct 5 hours for time zone & day light savings differences).

Nice pic, Don!

rwcooper wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 9:40 am Steve, what do you use as an information source? I've found https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ to be pretty reliable. It seems to match up with the god's eye view http://celestrak.com/ (remembering to correct 5 hours for time zone & day light savings differences).

Nice pic, Don!

I was using heavens-above.com I haven't any prior experience in verifying how accurate he is for Starlink, but he'd previously always been spot on for ISS passes and Iridium flares and other satellites.

I was out in the back yard in Maple Grove observing this month and happened to look up and see a train of Starlink satellites go by. The peak altitude was about 60 degrees passing near the Little Dipper. I estimate their brightness about 2nd magnitude. I could see 25 satellites in one view all strung together like a string of pearls.

Mark