A Stunning Image of the Australian Desert Illuminates the Growing Problem of Satellite Pollution [View all]

April 18, 2025
Grace Ebert
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/04/a-stunning-image-of-the-australian-desert-illuminates-the-growing-problem-of-satellite-pollution/
In January 2021, Joshua Rozells ventured out into the Pinnacles Desert in Western Australia, intending to photograph a star trail. But after shooting for more than three hours and reviewing his images, he realized that the light patterns he captured werent what he had hoped for.
There were satellite trails visible in almost every single photo, he wrote on Instagram. Instead of trying to get rid of them for a star trail, I decided to put the satellite trails together into a single image to show how polluted the night sky is becoming.
Stitching together 343 distinct photos, Rozells illuminates a growing problem. When Elon Musks SpaceX launched Starlink in 2019, 60 satellites filled the skies, with a race from other companies to follow. That number has now topped 10,000, with tens of thousands more in the works. SpaceX alone plans to launch 40,000 more.
Original:
https://kottke.org/25/04/swamped-skies
No wide-angle lens?