International Space Station vs. Starlink satellite comparison
Taken by Szabolcs Nagy on February 26, 2022 @
London, UK
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Details:
How big is a Starlink satellite?
Apparent diameter is used to determine the size of a celestial body or object in the sky. This does not show the real size of these objects, but rather the space they occupy in the sky.
Moon is about half a degree, that is, approx. 30 arcminutes (approximately 1800 arcseconds). To put this into context, the apparent diameter of the International Space Station (ISS) (if it is just above our head and therefore as close to us as possible) is approx. 60 a arcseconds.
It is a common practice in astrophotography to photograph different objects with the same equipment so that we can make an apparent size comparison.
The other day, my attention was focused on the Starlink flybys and on one occasion I was able to take a close-up shots of one of the satellites. I’ve shared this before, but yesterday I had the idea to show how big its apparent diameter is compared to the ISS. While the Moon is actually 340,000-410,000 km away from us and the ISS orbits Earth only at an altitude of 410 km. Therefore, the comparison of their apparent size in this case shows their true size relative to each other..almost entirely realistic, because in my opinion, the Starlink satellite could have been orbiting somewhere between 300-350 km 1.5 days after launch. I was definitely surprised, Starlinks are not small!
But how big actually is that 'not small'?
Well, the solar panel of the Starlink satellite is approx. 12m long. If you want to find a component of similar size on the ISS which is also easy to identify, the station's radiators (2 white rectangular units in the middle of the ISS) are the perfect for our purpose.
They are made up of 3 thinner radiators, giving a width of 12.2m (3x3.4m).
I hope we’ve been able to illustrate how big a Starlink satellite is in life compared to the one and only ISS. The observation is also interesting because in this case the satellite's solar panel is still fully facing us, which is why it was so bright 12 hours after launch. Already - 1 day later - their brightness decreased significantly, I didn't take close-up of this phase, but I did take a video with my Sony A7S (you can find it at the bottom of the post), the brightness during the transit is somewhat fainter.
Video taken with camera: 👇https://youtu.be/nbgDbj42FbI
Photographer's website:
https://www.spacestationguys.com
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