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Nottingham Post
Nottingham Post
National
Joseph Locker

Starlink satellites: When and how to see them flying over Nottinghamshire tonight

Elon Musk's Starlink satellites will be visible once again tonight and throughout the rest of the weekend.

For the past week, a number of the 422 satellites have been visible to the naked eye as they pass over the county in low orbit.

The satellites were designed and delivered into space by the entrepreneur's private spaceflight company, SpaceX, with the aim of eventually providing high-speed internet to remote areas of the world.

SpaceX has so far been granted permission to place up to 12,000 satellites into orbit, and Elon Musk says 800 will be needed for moderate internet connection.

Eventually, there are hopes that up to 40,000 will be operational.

A Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket with the seventh batch of approximately 60 satellites for SpaceX's Starlink broadband network, lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral (AP Photo/John Raoux)

They are currently visible as they are in low orbit at around 550km, and can be seen tonight, travelling in a line commonly referred to as a 'train'.

The Findastarlink website says you may be able to spot satellite train Starlink-5 and Starlink-6 at around 9.45pm for around six minutes.

To see them, the website says you must look up to 10 degrees above the horizon, or up to 87 degrees depending on your position.

The satellite trains will be travelling west to east.

Findastarlink says they may be visible on a number of occasions during the weekend, including:

Saturday, April 25: Starlink-5 and 6 at 9.45pm

Sunday, April 26: Starlink-3 at 4.50am

On April 22, residents across Nottinghamshire were also able to see SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket travelling from its launch pad in Florida and into space to deliver a further 60 satellites.

The rocket could be seen in Clifton, Beeston and Bingham trailing across the sky.

A mission to place more satellites into space happens around once a month.

The satellites are visible due to their position and reflective surfaces, which has become a concern for astronomers.

As a result, Elon Musk has now trailed a non-reflective coating on Starlink-2 to dim them in the night sky.

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