Canary Island photographer Daniel López thought he was taking a nice photo of Comet Neowise. That turned out differently. The composite comet image captured has many ‘light trails’, or satellite stripes, from the SpaceX Internet satellites.
Daniel López has posted his photo on Facebook with an explanation in which he indicates that he is sorry that all those luminous points passed by. The published photo is an aggregation of thirty photos, each of which had a shutter speed of 30 seconds. Twenty of the thirty photos showed passing Starlink satellites, according to López. Through the stacking From several photos taken consecutively and the applied relatively slow shutter speeds, the luminous dots from each Starlink satellite are visible here as several individual stripes.
Astronomers have often complained about the ‘pollution’ of celestial observations from Earth caused by the reflections from the Starlink satellites. The International Astronomical Union previously even warned that satellite constellations such as that of SpaceX threaten observations from terrestrial telescopes. The concerns stem in part from SpaceX’s plans. The company wants to eventually bring the number of internet satellites in low Earth orbit to 12,000, and that could even rise to 42,000. Currently, some 540 Starlink satellites are in orbit.
SpaceX seems willing to address the concerns. For example, the company launched a Starlink satellite with an anti-reflection coating at the beginning of this year. This satellite has a dark coating that should at least partially counteract reflections.
Comet Neowise is still visible in clear weather, looking north. On July 22, the comet flew closest to Earth, at a distance of 103.5 million kilometers. Since July 16, the comet’s brightness has been slowly diminishing, due to the fact that it is moving further and further away from the Sun and Earth. The comet will probably be barely visible with the naked eye by the end of this month, due to the further decreased brightness and the fact that there will be an almost full moon in the sky.