As NASA recently warned, light pollution caused by the rise of satellites is “wreaking havoc” on astrophotography. Photographer Daniel López attempted to photograph a telephoto time lapse of Comet NEOWISE this week, but was thwarted by SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.
On Tuesday, Lopez came out at night with a 200mm lens and Canon Ra astrophotographic mirrorless camera to take a series of 30-second exposure photos of Comet NEOWISE in hopes of creating a stacked photo in more detail.
Unfortunately for López, a series of Starlink satellites kept crossing the frame. Nearly 20 of his long-exposure photos showed traces of the satellites, and López used 17 of them to create the stacked photo above to show how many traces he had in his shot series.
Here is a time lapse video created using the photos:
“You can see it clearly, since in almost 25 images of the 34 that the video traces used to make appear,” López writes. “The field is not too big (200mm with a full frame), but it passed over the comet.”
Earlier this year, SpaceX unveiled a plan to prevent its thousands of Starlink satellites from becoming a plague in the night sky. The company aims to reduce the brightness of the satellite by adjusting the angles of the solar panels and providing new parasols for satellites.
If you want to avoid experiencing what Lopez did, you can search for when and where Starlink satellites might be crossing the sky at your particular location.
López is the same photographer who went viral a couple of years ago by capturing a moonset behind people 10 miles (16 km) away using an ultra telephoto lens. You can find more of his work on his website, Facebook and Twitter.
(via Daniel López via Gizmodo)
