26 replies to this topic

[AJ5150]

I've looked and looked and all I can find is the usual talk about satellites appearing white from reflecting the Sun. And then as it starts to dim, it can darken to a cream, yellowish, orange and even slightly appear red as it goes into the shadow. I've taken satellite pics for about 13 years using various cameras from point and shoots to DSLR. I've seen the darker colors, orange-ish color of the ISS at certain times. But on 10/12/23, I have now seen blue. I was taking 19sec exposures looking South using my Rokinon 16mm f/2 hoping to catch a decent meteor. Caught a ton of Satellites/junk, flaring, flashing, slow, fast. All the typical white color. One had flared fairly bright and had a darker hue on either side of the flair. But at 8:24pm, a blue line streaked by at about 50 degrees headed ESE. It was in a total of 7 pictures. I thought it was a helicopter at first. I didn't even give it a thought that it was a satellite because what satellite has a bright blue, almost an LED look to it? Well, at 8:32, here came another into view. Same bright blue, almost an LED look to it. This time this one was in 6 pictures. On the 6th picture, here came another into frame. Bright blue, LED look to it. This one was in 6 pictures as well AND it faded out. So OK, it's no helicopters. There was another at 8:39, then 8:49, then 8:54 and then the last one at 8:59pm. 7 total. I have looked everywhere that lists visible satellites and I can not find anything that was in that spot at that time, moving in that direction. So I'm stumped. I will post the pictures but they are rather large in size. I guess I will have to upload them to imgur if that is allowed.

[AJ5150]

https://imgur.com/a/nAT75lF

 

This is the one image where 2 were in frame at the same time. Unedited. There's also a satellite up top with the normal white look to it. I'm glad that's there to show that the color is fine. 

[Dave Mitsky]

Your link didn't work for me.

[Napp]

Sorry, I can't tell anything from your pictures.  However, the Starlink satellites I have seen lately appear quite blue - light, bright blue.

[AJ5150]

Sorry, I can't tell anything from your pictures.  However, the Starlink satellites I have seen latelyappear quite blue - light, bright blue.

Sorry about that. The pic looks like garbage on a mobile device but it looks fine on my PC. Kinda odd. 

[AJ5150]

[grif 678]

Have not seen the milky way like that in quite a while

[Another_Dave]

Probably worth mentioning that cameras can and do modify relative colours with colour temperature. And if set to automatic will make their own assumptions and choices about what to set as 'white'.

 

This can make white things blue in images if there is other stuff in the image that is illuminated by light sources of lower colour temperature (or otherwise just coloured towards the red end of the spectrum). For example.

 

Our eyes can also offer this illusion to a lesser extent. But, in my experience of seeing plenty of Starlink birds though my telescope and binoculars, they appear more or less white to me most of the time.

[AJ5150]

Probably worth mentioning that cameras can and do modify relative colours with colour temperature. And if set to automatic will make their own assumptions and choices about what to set as 'white'.

 

This can make white things blue in images if there is other stuff in the image that is illuminated by light sources of lower colour temperature (or otherwise just coloured towards the red end of the spectrum). For example.

 

Our eyes can also offer this illusion to a lesser extent. But, in my experience of seeing plenty of Starlink birds though my telescope and binoculars, they appear more or less white to me most of the time.

I never set it to Auto. It's always on cool-white fluorescent. All of the other satellites of varying brightness appeared as the usual white. These 7 in question were the only ones that were blue. I had never seen blue until that night.  

[Napp]

I will reiterate a point from a post I made earlier.  The Starlink trains I have observed over the last several months have all been quite blue.  I guess I would best describe them as icy blue.  The color was quite prominent.

[MrsM75]

Hi Sir OP, I hope it ok for me to screenshot this of your picture of the satellite you have in question. I think you want to ask about this satellite that you saw.

 

I never see any satellite link so I have no idea. But wow. your sky. I'm here in Bortle 8/9, so yah. your sky is just a dream to me.

 

[Another_Dave]

It's always on cool-white fluorescent.

Interesting. I would have expected that to give the satellites a slight yellow tint if anything.

 

Oh well, colour temperature was my best guess. I'm out of ideas now.

[AJ5150]

I will reiterate a point from a post I made earlier.  The Starlink trains I have observed over the last several months have all been quite blue.  I guess I would best describe them as icy blue.  The color was quite prominent.

I'm gonna have to actually be outside and see if I can see it next time. I've seen starlink quite a few times before but it was always white. I took more photos the night after I posted this and this time I captured about 10 just pop up out of the shadow and all were blue blue again. I actually made a timelapse this time. I don't think I can directly upload video here can I? I'll upload it to my youtube channel. I keep checking the starlink finder page but there wasn't anything for that time frame both nights. IDK 

[AJ5150]

https://www.youtube....h?v=vMunFqblsLA

 

Look at the upper right 5 seconds in. All other satellites are white. These, I assume Starlink, are blue.

[Phil Cowell]

Sounds like Blue Walker3.

https://www.space.co...ing-astronomers

[RoofMonkey911]

Have you checked https://www.heavens-above.com after setting your location & the time/date you were photographing?

That would at least give you an idea of what was up there.

[JohnTMN]

I've looked and looked and all I can find is,,

Maybe stop looking at photo's and start looking at the sky?

Edited by JohnTMN, 16 October 2023 - 12:55 AM.

[freestar8n]

Interesting.  It looks like this is the new version 2 starlink with an attempt to reduce brightness - which also makes them look blue:

 

https://www.thespace...ical brightness.

 

I'll try to view them with naked eye sometime.

 

The picture you provided shows it as convincingly blue to me - particularly if you actually saw it with your eyes and noticed the color right away.

 

Frank

[Human1]

Cool time lapse! I haven’t seen the blue ones but have seen some new orange sats that are around magnitude 3 and 4 and one of them back on 10/2 was brighter and larger than Jupiter and appeared to be pretty low. The orange ones seem to be brighter than the other satellites and I never saw these in the past so they must be new. Someone mentioned the Chinese space station might be the one that was brighter than Jupiter. All I know is satellite viewing has gotten a LOT more interesting recently. 

[lajoswinkler]

You know the blue band in the umbral edge during Lunar eclipses? It has the same origin as the intense blue above belt of Venus after sunset and that's Chappuis absorption of light by ozone which also contributes to sky color (Rayleigh scattering is more dominant for that).

It is possible in some circumstances, probably with artificial satellites orbiting a lot higher than International space station because you need a thicker light layer as light diverges with increasing distance.

If something reflective passes through the region illuminated by such light, we will see bluish light, but not always. First of all, there aren't that many apparently bright passes of higher satellites. Second, if the pass/flare is too bright, our retinas see white and if it's too dim, we don't perceive color because only rod cells engage.

I've seen bluish satellites passing on rare occasions. From my experience, it's a very rare event.

[whooshbang]

Seen exactly the same thing last Saturday night.

 

2 Satellites passing over around 10 mins apart. from West to East. Both distinctively Blue in colour.

 

Viewing through 12x50 binoculars from a bortle 7 sky.

 

Thought it was aircraft but no flashing lights and moving very fast.

[Rusty35]

Only 2 things come to mind

1: Klingon Battle Cruiser. (which is what I think it is)

2:Some guy on another planet using a blue laser to point his Telescope.

[W5JCK]

This is a year old thread, but the OP's sky in his photo is awfully slanted toward purple, which indicates the color settings (probably white balance) is off. He stated he set WB to Fluorescent. Most night sky photographers I know of use Daytime or a value of K = 5500 or thereabouts. The sky itself should be more neutral in color. Always shoot RAW, don't rely on the camera to create color-correct JPEGs. 

 

Another issue can be filters. If he had a filter on the lens that can cause weird colors. Same goes for the lens coatings. Some cheaper lenses have horrible lens coatings and that can cause issues. 

 

If the sky was corrected in post processing to be a more neutral grey (assuming he has a RAW file), the star and trail colors might correct themselves.

[Rutilus]

I was out after the Comet yesterday evening. There was a string/line of  Starlink satellites (looks like a recent

batch just deployed, observed them again just before dawn today and they looked wider apart).

When they went past a white star, you could see that they had a blue tint to them. 

Photo below shows the comet and the satellites. Photo on right taken as they passed more overhead

from my location.

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[EricTheCat]

I saw a new starlink train on 9/25 that was blue.  I only managed to get this one quick shaky exposure as it was moving quickly and I wasn't expecting it.  I bumped the camera mid exposure which allows you to see the spacing.

 

Definitely was one of those "what the heck am I looking at?" moments.