Expectation versus reality: Space X Satellite trains

You know the drill right? Getting all siked over a project which you find cool, feeling the hype about it, making your preparations to see what is going on, doing your research. And then.....

This is what I am talking about. At the moment Space X satellite train is very visible here in Europe. Thats has to do with a new launch, the satellites are better seen right after launch, and then afterwards everyday they take more distance from each other and als they are further away from Earth, so more difficult to see.

Space X is a project from Elon Musk (the guy from Tesla electro cards, and also notorious for smoking pot on TV and getting messed up from that) which goal is to provide the whole world (also remote areas) with decent speed internet. In general a sweet thought, but it will need about 15.000 metal flyers in the sky which is a damn lot. So they are launched in groups to get them in position, and then a next launch is made.

At the moment the sky in central Europe is crystal clear already for days, making it perfect to stargaze if you are in a dark area. And you should! Because it is a damn cool concept! A group is about 50 satellites in a row which is super weird to see as you can see in the video. A lot of people who weren't aware of this going on and they called the local planetaria because they thought extra-terrestials were entering Earth. Honestly, if I wasn't aware...I would be weirded out too before google would tell me the truth ;)

On the website findstarlink.com you can see exactly with your location when everything is best visible at what time and in what direction you should look. Yesterday at 22.59 they were passing my region and it would take about 6 minutes. So I crawled off my sofa in the middle of the evening to check the situation outside. Honestly, if people would have called the police to find out why people are staring at the sky in the middle of a field, I would get it :D

Pixabay

Honestly I saw a crap load of stars, because indeed the sky is really clear at the moment. And I also saw two passing satellites about 5 minutes beforehand. Maybe I was checking the wrong angle, maybe, it wasn't enough after all.....But the satellite Train....nehhhhh I never saw it!

A new change today!! Although they are further apart from each other again. Fingers crossed!