If you do not think they are a problem, take a look at this image.
The imager captured the Comet C/2025A6 Lamon from his observatory in the yellow springs of Ohio in the morning of 27 September. Pay attention to many satellite trails crossing the field of attention. Credit: John Chumac
I wanted to share the above image with you to showcase how the prevailing satellite trails are being made in astrime. I received it from John Kiss, who is a long contributor Astronomy magazine. He really labeled the image, “Crazy satellite traffic.” And that is not wrong.
He was taking a 60-second exposure of comets C/2025 A6 Lemmon at his observatory. He captured 44 of them to stack for his last image. Among them, he said that he did not have satellite trails in only six. It is crazy.
You can see that the stars are implicating. This is because he was tracking the nucleus of the comet because it was swept away against the background stars, which was a standard technique used by the comet photographers.
He wrote that he would later use Sigma reject, a popular way to remove satellite trails during processing to produce a clean image of the comet. But in his email, he said, “I felt that I would share this crazy unfiltered stacked shot with you to show satellite traffic.”
He advised me to zoom in to see the fanter trails (and I am advising you). In his negative image, he counted more than 30 trails.
Thanks, John, to remind us about some hardware that revolve around our planet between us and the stars. Oh, and send a clean image soon!
