Stunning Image of Our Satellite-Choked Night Skies

Photographer Brendan Larsen combined 578 long-exposure frames taken over two hours above Mt Taranaki into a single composite revealing roughly 14,450 satellite streaks from an estimated 1,400 individual satellites, a project he says required about 45 hours of manual editing in Adobe Photoshop. Larsen, 51, set his camera to capture unlimited eight-second exposures with two-second gaps, then erased stars frame by frame to isolate the trails, rejecting online claims that the image was AI-generated. The image drew praise from fellow photographer Vincent Laforet, who called it "an important photograph" and questioned who authorized the proliferation of orbiting satellites. The work matters because it visualizes the growing congestion of low-Earth orbit, where commercial constellations are increasingly interfering with astronomical imaging and dark-sky observation. Watch for whether satellite operators and regulators tighten brightness-mitigation rules as mega-constellations expand.