How to watch Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites over the UK this weekend

The Starlink constellation of satellites by Elon Musk’s SpaceX will be visible across most of the UK this weekend – including those launched this week. 

The small satellite train is visible as moving dots in the sky – starting with Starlink 6-7 going west to southeast at about 8:58pm – about 10 degrees above the horizon.

Exact timings will vary depending on where you are in the UK and how visible they are will depend on cloud cover and light pollution in your area.  

Clear skies are predicted for most of the evening over much of the UK and for the 8:58pm appearance they’ll travel across the sky for about four minutes.  

There will be a second appearance of the satellites tonight – at about 9:10pm when Sarlink 5-6 will move from west to east for six minutes and should be brighter than the earlier showing.  

They will become gradually harder to see as the weekend goes on and the final chance to view them over the UK in this run will be at 4:26am on Tuesday morning. 

The fleet of communications satellites – designed to bring low cost broadband to rural areas around the world – have been visible over the UK for most of the week.

People have reported seeing the starlink train of satellites across the UK all week – from Guildford to London. 

Each train contains about 30 satellites and at certain points can appear to be brighter than the planet Venus due to their solar panels glinting from the Sun.

They are only densely packed and easy to see for the first few months after launch as their orbits gradually raise and they become harder to see. 

During their orbit the satellites – like the International Space Station – are only visible for a certain time over each part of the Earth as they don’t move in a straight line around the planet.

The satellites are also slowly increasing their orbit – unlike the ISS – so will become gradually less visible over time.

But with SpaceX planning to launch another 500 this year and potentially up to 12,000 over the next few years – they should be visible for some time yet.

The most recent batch was launched on April 22 from Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket.

The Falcon 9 took off at 3:30pm ET carrying a new batch of 60 Starlink satellites, marking its 84th time flying into orbit. 

The firm aims to have more than 1,000 satellites in orbit by the end of the year and has also been approved by the FCC to launch over 12,000 in total. 

Although Musk may believe he is doing the world a service, astronomers have slammed the ‘disgusting’ project which they claim is ‘a crime against humanity’. 

A recent study from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) found that satellite mega-constellations such as Starlink will ‘severely’ affect between 30 and 50 percent of observations taken by the Rubin Observatory, an astronomical observatory currently under construction in Chile. 

‘Mitigation techniques that could be applied on ESO telescopes would not work for this observatory although other strategies are being actively explored,’ it said.

Sky observers and experts have also taken to social media over the past year to voice their concern about the disruption to their work. 

The satellites are designed to provide broadband coverage across the world and each one weighs 575lbs (260kg). 

They form a constellation which will eventually create a network encompassing all of Earth orbiting 341 miles above the surface. 

The US-based company is testing a dark, anti-reflective coating to see how it alters the reflection from the crafts in response to concerns by astornomers.

During the launch of the last batch, on March 18, SpaceX’s live broadcast presenter claimed early indications suggest the coating is working. 

‘Preliminary results show a notable reduction,’ said Jessica Anderson, one of the hosts of the webcast. 

She added that the company had ‘a couple of other ideas that we think could reduce the reflectivity even further,’ Space News reports.