Do thousands of satellites bother astronomers? Wait until the sky is full of massive orbiting mirrors!

Sunshine is good, right? Who doesn't like sunlight! A US company, Reflect Orbital, has decided the Earth simply doesn't have enough of it and has a fairly radical solution: it's going to place in orbit a fleet of 18 x 18m highly reflective mirrors that can be positioned to reflect sunlight to areas on the Earth's surface that are underdoing periods of "sunlight deficiency."

In other words, night time. 

These will be used to power solar panels arrays, provide extra light for growing crops around the clock and even illuminate emergency and disaster areas. The first of these has received clearance to launch this year on the Eärendil-1 satellite, carrying an 18m x 18m mirror, with fleet of...wait for it...50,000 in place by 2035.

Some of the proposed satellites in orbit. Illustration via Reflect Orbital

I think it would be a fair to say that this might impact astronomers and astrophotographers and possibly even dwarf the impact of light pollution in many areas.  These satellites need to be repositioned every few minutes when operating and with chances of "flashes" while this is happening landing in the eyes of drivers or pilots, disorienting animals or straight down a telescope tube. 

Interestingly this was approved by the American FCC (Federal Communications Commission) who regulate satellite and radio transmission. As these satellites "transmit" on the visual spectrum and not on radio frequency, they decided that they have no authority to regulate the project. (Read more about that here if you're having a slow afternoon and have got nothing better to do....)

The space above our heads is becoming increasingly crowded. Apart from the thousands of existing satellites which are already impacting astronomy, there are plans for strange and weird programs like artificial meteor showers, space hotels, space burials and more.  In fact, the American FCC has a new document called "Spectrum Abundance for Weird Space Stuff" (seriously, that's what it's called!) and you can read it on their government website here.

I'd be out there enjoying the dark skies while you can.

A companion found for Betelgeuse 

One of the brightest stars in the sky is the ruby red "shoulder" in the constellation of Orion. It's not visible all night sky during our Australian winter, but as the months roll on, it will be shining brightly in the summer months. It's one of the best known stars in the night sky and it's also known to vary in brightness over long, semi-regular periods 

The exact reason for the variation in Betelgeuse is still unknown and it's thought be to caused by dust clouds, the star contracting as it prepares to go supernova or even an unseen companion star passing in front it. 

Announced this week is the discovery of the long proposed companion for Betelgeuse. A team lead by an astronomer from Paris Observatory spotted this hidden star in images taken by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT).

One of the problems with observing faint companion stars like this is the glare from the brightness of the main star. Betelgeuse is hundreds of thousands of times brighter than the newly discovered star orbiting it. 

The image was obtained using SPHERE, the high-contrast imaging instrument installed on ESO’s VLT in Chile. 

VLT images of Betelgeuse and its companion (Image via: ESO/M. Montargès et al. Background: N. Rissinge)  

"This is the conclusion of a century-long quest." says Miguel Montargès, deputy astronomer at Paris Observatory PSL and lead author of the study. "We have shown that Betelgeuse is not single, it is accompanied by a faint stellar companion.'"

As often with these sorts of discoveries, this not something you'll be able to observe or image with your telescope. 

Read more here. 

The largest galaxy ever observed is even bigger than we thought

Astronomers have considered a galaxy called IC 1101 to the largest ever measured. It belongs to a class called brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), which form through the mergers of multiple smaller galaxies and are likely to be still growing.

One of the problems working out just how large they are is the difficulty in finding out where their outer edges actually are. In other words, where does the galaxy end and where does intergalactic space start.

Astronomers using Wide Field Camera (WFC) at the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) in the Canary Islands have extended the size of IC 1101 to 1.7 million light-years (520 kiloparsecs) from the previous estimate of 370,000 light-years (114 kiloparsecs). It's a major upgrade which puts IC 1101 even further ahead of other galaxies. 

IC 1101 is about 17 times the size of our own Milky Way and containing an estimated 3.4 trillion solar masses in stars, around 55 times the stellar mass of the Milky Way

Unlike many cutting-edge astronomy discoveries, IC 1101 is within the reach of amateur telescopes. Located in Virgo, Its magnitude is about 13.2 and 14.7 depending on filters used. You'll need something in the range of 200mm (8") aperture or more but if you spot it, you can gaze at a faint smudge knowing is the largest galaxy ever found, and still growing. 

Moon Phases for August 2026

Full Moon from Sydney on Thursday 30th July around 7.00pm. Taken with a DWARF mini.

We get asked for local Moon phases as online and AI results can sometimes show them in US or European times.  For August 2026 they are:    

All times AEST (UTC+10), Sydney.

Lucky 13 for SpaceX's Starship

No big kaboom for the latest flight of the big rocket. 

Last weekend saw the 13th flight of the largest rocket ever built, the Starship by SpaceX. Flight 13 lifted off from Starbase on Saturday morning our time, after a scrubbed attempt on 16th July when four engines failed to ignite, and a weather scrub on the 23th of July.

It was the second flight of the V3 vehicles and the first Starship flight to deploy next-generation Starlink V3 satellites. The booster relit only 10 of 13 engines on descent, with five failing seconds later, resulting in a harder splashdown. 

A nice planetary alignment for early risers

If you like getting up pre-dawn (or maybe winding up from a big night before) there's some lovely planetary alignments in the pre-dawn skies in August. Here's the view low on the horizon from the north and northeastern skies on around 5.30am on the 9th of August 2026 as seen from Sydney.

Speaking of Betelgeuse, you will see Mars and the Moon just below the red giant star, along with Saturn higher in the sky. 

This image is produced with Stellarium which is popular here at BINTEL!

Cheers,

Earl White

BINTEL 

1st August 2026