Related papers: Satellite Streak Brightness Variation with Orbit H…
The high frequency of satellite launches, particularly over the last few years, has been a subject of significant concern, particularly relating to the future of observational astronomy, the stability of low Earth orbits, and environmental…
In August 2025 a workshop was convened to bring together experts to better understand steps that can be taken to mitigate the impact of satellite constellations on astronomical observations. At the time, just over 12,000 operational…
The rapid increase in satellite launches in recent years, and the pressure of launches planned into the next decade, demands an improvement in the efficiency of space domain awareness facilities. Optical facilities form an important…
Megaconstellations of thousands to tens of thousands of artificial satellites (satcons) are rapidly being developed and launched. These satcons will have negative consequences for observational astronomy research, and are poised to…
The Starlink satellites are shaped like flat panels. The flat sides face zenith and nadir during normal operations. Their brightness is determined by the product of the solar illumination on the downward facing side of the panel multiplied…
Recent observations of surface brightness distributions of both Milky Way and M31 satellite galaxies have revealed many instances of sudden changes or breaks in the slope of the surface brightness profiles (at some break radius, r_break).…
The effect of satellite constellations on observations in the visible and IR domains is estimated, considering 18 constellations in development by SpaceX, Amazon, OneWeb, and others, with over 26,000 satellites, constituting a…
This study evaluates the effect of proposed constellations -- ranging from current deployments to mega-constellations and very bright reflector concepts -- on direct trail losses, diffuse background, and scattered sky brightness. We use a…
The mean of 430 visual magnitudes of VisorSats adjusted to a distance of 550-km (the operational altitude) is 5.92 +/-0.04. This is the characteristic brightness of these satellites when observed at zenith. VisorSats average 1.29 magnitudes…
The number of small satellites has grown dramatically in the past decade from tens of satellites per year in the mid-2010s to a projection of tens of thousands in orbit by the mid-2020s. This presents both problems and opportunities for…
Context. To better understand the observed brightness of low Earth orbit satellites, we must characterize their reflectivity, which in turn depends importantly on their bus designs. The reflectivity of a body can be described by Lambert's…
This paper presents optical night sky brightness measurements from the stratosphere using CCD images taken with the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT). The data used for estimating the backgrounds were obtained during…
The Surface Brightness Fluctuations (SBF) Method for distance determinations of elliptical galaxies is been modeled in order to investigate the effect of the Point Spread Function (PSF). We developed a method to simulate observations of SBF…
Artificial satellites orbiting around the Earth, under certain conditions, result to be visible even to the naked eye. The phenomenon of light pollution jeopardises the researching activities of the astronomical community: traces left by…
The mean visual magnitude of OneWeb satellites at the standard satellite distance of 1,000 km is 7.18 +/-0.03 . When this value is adjusted to the nominal 1,200 km altitude of a OneWeb satellite in orbit it corresponds to magnitude 7.58…
Satellite imagery is increasingly used to complement traditional data collection approaches such as surveys and censuses across scientific disciplines. However, we ask: Do all places on earth benefit equally from this new wealth of…
We assess the impact of satellite glints -- rapid flashes produced by reflections of a sunlight from flat surfaces of rotating satellites -- on current and future deep sky surveys such as the ones conducted by the Zwicky Transient Facility…
Starlink satellites can become extremely bright when sunlight reflects specularly to an observer on the ground. The observed brightness of such flares is consistent with a bidirectional reflectance function of the Starlink satellite…
A large wide-field telescope and camera with optical throughput over 200 m^2 deg^2 -- a factor of 50 beyond what we currently have -- would enable the detection of faint moving or bursting optical objects: from Earth threatening asteroids…
Magnetic features on the surfaces of cool stars cause variations of their brightness. Such variations have been extensively studied for the Sun. Recent planet-hunting space telescopes allowed measuring brightness variations in hundred…