Article content continued

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or

Crazy or not, last week’s mass launch of 60 satellites by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was the second instalment of a network that Musk hopes will one day number in the tens of thousands. Eventually, Starlink’s satellites could bring broadband Internet coverage to northern Canada and other remote regions of the world. The Nov. 11 launch was the first batch of production satellites and followed a trial launch of 60 test satellites last May.

But astronomers — both professionals and amateur skywatchers like Stittsville’s Andrew Symes — worry the satellites will forever change the night sky, with “constellations” of bright satellites zipping to and fro across the heavens.

“A lot of the talk at first was, ‘Don’t worry. These won’t be that bright,” said Symes, who photographs stars, planets and other celestial objects from his backyard using an eight-inch telescope and his iPhone camera. “They said, ‘They’ll just be near the horizon.’ But as soon as that first batch was launched, it was, ‘Oh no. These are quite bright.’

“Anyone looking at the night sky is already facing a lot of challenges. Light pollution is one of them and over time, the sky is only going to get brighter. This just seems like another kick in the teeth: Now we have to account for thousands of these things.”

While a hobbyist can fix an image by cropping or using Photoshop, the satellites pose a bigger threat to professional astronomers who depend on dark skies to explore the universe.