Real-time satellite tracker
Every satellite above your head
Track satellites orbiting Earth in real time. See what's visible tonight from your location.
15.3k+
Active satellites
10.3k+
Starlink
80+
Countries
Globe Explorer
Every satellite, right now
Tonight's best passes
See all passes →ALOS-2
ESE → NNW · 31° max
22:54
13 min
COSMO-SKYMED 1
NNE → W · 15° max
23:06
11 min
RESURS-DK 1
WNW → ENE · 35° max
23:17
12 min
Predictions for Reykjavik, Iceland. Times in local time (GMT).
What you're seeing
Thousands of satellites orbit Earth at this very moment — from the International Space Station to constellations of Starlink internet satellites. Many are visible to the naked eye, especially during twilight when the sky is dark but satellites, orbiting hundreds of kilometres above, still catch sunlight.
They appear as bright, steady dots gliding smoothly across the sky. Unlike planes, which blink, satellites shine with an unwavering light. A typical pass lasts two to five minutes, crossing from one horizon to the other. Some, like the ISS, can outshine every star in the sky.
This tool predicts exactly when and where to look. We track every bright satellite in Earth's orbit, compute pass times for your location, and show you a sky chart so you know precisely where the satellite will appear, peak, and disappear.
How to spot a satellite
Go outside during twilight — roughly 30 to 90 minutes after sunset or before sunrise. Look in the predicted direction. You will see a bright dot moving steadily across the sky, taking a few minutes to cross from one side to the other. No telescope needed — just your eyes and a clear view of the sky.
Light pollution
The sky we’re losing
For most of human history, the night sky was a universal commons — something every person on Earth could look up at and see. The Milky Way arched overhead from horizon to horizon. Navigation by stars was not a niche skill but ordinary knowledge.
In a single century of industrialisation and electrification, that changed. A landmark 2016 study by Falchi et al. (Science Advances, 2016. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1600377) found that approximately 99% of Americans and Europeans live under a sky so bright that it no longer qualifies as truly dark. More than one-third of the global population — and 60% of Europeans — can no longer see the Milky Way from where they live.
Now a new layer is being added. Low-orbit satellite constellations reflect sunlight into the night sky, appearing as moving streaks to naked-eye observers and bright trails in long-exposure photography. The SATCON2 Working Group (NOIRLab, 2021) assessed that satellites brighter than magnitude 7 contribute measurably to sky brightness above astronomical observatories and can ruin individual exposures in any imaging session timed near twilight.
The effect is not limited to professional telescopes. Every aurora photographer in Iceland, Norway, and Canada encounters it. The best mitigation today is timing: check pass predictions before your session and plan exposures around the predictable 90-minute orbital cycle.
Astrophotography
Shooting around the satellites
Time your session
Satellites need sunlight to be visible. During deep astronomical twilight (Sun > 18° below horizon), most LEO satellites pass into Earth's shadow. Plan sessions for mid-night, not dusk or dawn.
Check pass predictions
Use this tracker before heading out. Look up your location's "tonight" schedule — you can identify 15-minute windows between major satellite passes.
Stack and reject
Capture 3× more frames than you need. In post-processing, a sigma-clipping stack (available in Sequator, Siril, and DeepSkyStacker) automatically rejects the frames with trails.
Shorter exposures
A satellite that would streak across a 90-second exposure may only clip the corner of a 10-second frame. Multiple short stacked exposures are now preferred over single long ones.
Source: SATCON2 Working Group Report (NOIRLab, 2021); AAS Satellite Constellations Task Force Report (Walker et al., 2020).
“Up to 30% of wide-field astronomical images taken during civil twilight contain satellite trails.”
Orbital ownership
Who owns the sky?
Active satellites by operator — as of April 2026. One company now operates more satellites than all governments on Earth combined.
By operator (~10,400 active satellites)
~6,100 satellites
Planet, Kuiper, Spire…
CASC, CASIC, Commsat
UK-based constellation
DoD, NASA, NOAA
Orbital altitude
Where they orbit
Each dot is one satellite, plotted at its current altitude. Starlink sits tightly at 550 km. GPS satellites orbit at 20,200 km. Geostationary satellites hover at 35,786 km — the same spot in the sky, always.
Never miss a visible pass
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