Visibility Predictions for Near-future Satellite Megaconstellations: Latitudes near 50° Will Experience the Worst Light Pollution
Speakers: Emanuele Dondoglio (Università degli Studi di Padova)
Megaconstellations of thousands to tens of thousands of artificial satellites(satcons)are rapidly being developedand launched. These satcons will have negative consequences for observational astronomy research, and are poisedto drastically interfere with naked-eye stargazing worldwide should mitigation efforts be unsuccessful. Here weprovide predictions for the optical brightnesses and on-sky distributions of several satcons, including Starlink,OneWeb, Kuiper, and StarNet/GW, for a total of 65,000 satellites on theirfiled or predicted orbits. We develop asimple model of satellite reflectivity, which is calibrated using published Starlink observations. We use this modelto estimate the visible magnitudes and on-sky distributions for these satellites as seen from different places onEarth, in different seasons, and different times of night. For latitudes near 50°north and south, satcon satellitesmake up a few percent of all visible point sources all night long near the summer solstice, as well as near sunriseand sunset on the equinoxes. Altering the satellites’altitudes only changes the specific impacts of the problem.Without drastic reduction of the reflectivities, or significantly fewer total satellites in orbit, satcons will greatlychange the night sky worldwide.