BBC Sky at Night Magazine

The ISS and other satellites

Your meteor watch will also reveal many human-made stars

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Through the night you will regularly see a point of light moving slowly across the sky. This will be one of the thousands of artificial satellites orbiting the Earth. Some will appear as bright as the stars of the Plough, others will be so faint you will barely see them and some might flare briefly, becoming strikingly bright before fading from view.

The Internatio­nal Space Station (ISS) can appear very bright in the sky sometimes, but it won’t be visible during the Perseids. If you see a number of satellites moving across the sky in a trail like railway carriages, they will be some of the many hundreds of SpaceX Starlink satellites now in orbit. Many profession­al astronomer­s are greatly concerned that as these satellites fill the sky they will ruin their work, while amateurs are frustrated by their impact on astrophoto­graphy and the natural beauty of the heavens.

 ??  ?? Train of lights: the SpaceX Starlink satellite megaconste­llation may be visible
Train of lights: the SpaceX Starlink satellite megaconste­llation may be visible

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