05/08/2026
Hello !
Summer break? For the office, yes (do not worry, we open again on August 24). But not for the sky! Yesterday we packed the telescope and drove up to the , to test under the stars some of the new solutions we are working on.
The setup was incredibly fast. No polar alignment, no counterweights to balance. And thanks to the integration of EAGLE computer, the cable management is so simple that we can move with the already pre-installed and the cables still connected. No need to disassemble everything, so once on the field we only need few minutes to be ready and pointing at the sky. So we had something rare, time. Time to sit down, look up, and simply wait for the darkness.
Astronomical twilight is the last step before the real night. When the Sun goes below the horizon the light fades in three stages. First the civil twilight, when you can still read outside. Then the nautical twilight, when the horizon becomes hard to see and the brightest stars appear. Then the astronomical twilight, when the Sun is around 15 degrees below the horizon. Only then, the sky is completely dark and the astronomical night begins.
And while we were waiting, we noticed something. Moving points of light, crossing the sky in every direction. Satellites, a lot of them. You see them especially in that moment. A satellite does not produce light, it only reflects the light of the Sun. Down here we are already in the shadow of the Earth, but a satellite few hundreds kilometers high is still fully illuminated. Dark sky, bright satellite. Later in the night many of them enter the shadow too, and simply disappear.
We stopped counting. There are so many more than just few years ago, and this is something every astronomer today has to live with.
Then the sky became completely dark, and we started to work.
