Safe to say, I’ve managed to break my brain while taking a timelapse of geostationary satellites.
So let me start with the first way this has broken my brain. First off, you don’t need any tracking to capture these, since they are stationary relative to us. This means though, that you see the stars flying past relative to the sats themselves.
The second way this broke my brain is that there is actually a cluster of four satellites flying in perfect formation with one another (I was only expecting to see one, so to have four pop up is insane).
The third way involves the fact that geostationary satellites, when within a two week period of the equinox, will briefly pass into earths shadow and disappear from view. We are currently within that two week period, so I got to watch them disappear right on time, just as expected. Something about that managed to break me as well. I expect to see them reappear in half an hour, which will again break my brain.
The fourth way that I am expecting to break my brain is that early tomorrow morning at 4:30 am, these satellites are going to transit right past the Orion Nebula. Close enough that you should be able to see it pass in the final timelapse. If I am able to catch this, I’m going to lose it.
As you may or may not be able to tell from the overly long explanation I’ve just written, I am extremely excited and kinda blown away by this. I genuinely think it is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in astrophotography.
Snek preview: