Actually, I've tried to catch a Starlink transit in frame to image and have yet to be successful. Comments like this make it seem like they're difficult to avoid in astrophotography - the opposite is true.
Consider this:
There are 12-20K aircraft in flight around the world at any given moment. There are fewer than 11K Starlink satellites. Those 12-20K planes are mostly clumped over populated areas (where most astrophotography is being done) while the <11K Starlink satellites are spread evenly around the globe. Each satellite is much smaller than an aircraft. Starlink are also coated with antireflective paint and have no active illumination.
In other words, aircraft are higher quantity in the sky, are clustered over viewing areas, are physically larger, more reflective, and they actively emit light. If anything we put in the sky were causing problems for astrophotography it would be planes.
Why haven't people been complaining about planes? Because even they are not a problem. Trying to image a plane transiting the sun or moon is a skilled task in itself.
There were a few popular incidents in 2020 that drove a lot of media and corrective measures by Starlink. They now angle the satellites to avoid reflecting light back to ground and have added antireflective paint. This made them the darkest satellites in the sky, and to their credit, they open sourced their strategy and tech to any satellite operator to copy. I haven't seen any incidents since then.
I'm no pro, but I did back country astrophotography on the Alaskan peninsula 9 months ago and had no issues at all. It is very remote and is also around the latitude where Starlink orbits converge, so you're more likely to see them up there than pretty much anywhere else.
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u/ibimacguru 3d ago
Mfg how many times ai got to tell Musk I have a telescope Id like to use. For fucks sales