Now Begins the 'Season of Satellites' Above Oregon, Washington: Summer's Surreal Show

Published 04/14/26 at 6:55 a.m.
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Portland, Oregon) - There's a lot of talk about satellites these days. There are a lot of them up there, creating an annoyance to astronomers, to photographers, and to scientists who worry about their critica mass in orbit. Above: Comet Lemmon in far upper left and a host of satellites above Bandon last year. Courtesy Manuela Durson - see Manuela Durson Fine Arts for more

Yet there's one thing that is missing from the conversation: the wild spectacle. They can look like slow meteors and create intense sights (and there have been some astounding meteors in the middle of this show last week). Also missing: no one notices right now is the Season of the Satellites around these parts. Indeed, likely the whole northern hemisphere, but certainly around Washington, Oregon and our coastlines.

This is not fireballs or meteor showers. Satellites. [Also see Yet Another Great Fireball Above Oregon / Washington - And Why So Many Lately]

Starting about April, they put on a show at night, sometimes looking like they're burning up or firing up in dazzling brightness. It's the light show no one tells you about, and lasts maybe into early October.

The thing is you can almost never see them in winter.

Early in April, before the cloud cover and rains hit, Oregon Coast Beach Connection had begun spotting them in a tight little corner of the northeast sky. Sometimes one or two a minute, and every once in awhile you'd get incredible colors. Within a few days, that range they moved around in began increasing, so undoubtedly by the time things clear again you'll start to see them farther up.

For the last two summers, Oregon Coast Beach Connection has seen a mad rush of them – the majority of them likely SpaceX flooding the skies. Love'm or hate'm: it's mesmerizing. They glow suddenly; one even burned up in the skies last year and looked more like something out of Star Trek, complete with a "warp trail." You can count trains of them following each other, sometimes at 19 or more. They occasionally flash almost like aircraft but at 6- to 8-second intervals, which is likely them tumbling or spinning (which adds a whole new twist).

So why so many satellites between now and September?

Oregon astrophysicist Ethan Siegel said it's got to do with the high path the sun takes for us through spring and early fall.

They're reflecting sunlight, and the tilt of the Earth right now is allowing a lot more of that from our point of view.

Graphic provided by Siegel

“There's a certain angle below which the sun's rays will no longer strike a satellite and reflect off of it, enabling a night-side observer on Earth to see it. That value is somewhere in between 20 and 30 degrees: you can see them when the sky is fully dark (the 18 degree threshold), but only for a little while after that,” Siegel told Oregon Coast Beach Connection.

Or as OMSI's Jim Todd put it: satellites stay in the sun more instead of winking out.

It comes down to the changing of Earth's shadow – on itself.

There was, of course, that infamous incident a few years ago when a SpaceX satellite burned up and pieces were found in Washington State and the Oregon coast, like this chunk at Waldport (Photo Lincoln County Sheriffs). Apparent SpaceX Rocket Debris Found on Oregon Coast 

“As we move toward summer, the Earth's 'shadow cone' (umbra) shrinks from our perspective in the Northern Hemisphere,” Todd said. “The North Pole tilts toward the sun. The shadow cone 'slumps' towards the south. This means even when it is midnight for viewers, the space directly above your head is still bathed in sunlight.”

Both Siegel and Todd said that's why these disappear in winter. Our hemisphere tilts at an angle where they just don't get lit up.

Siegel added that since us Oregonians are so close to the 45th parallel, that makes the shift more severe.

When is the best time of night to see satellites around Oregon and Washington?

Oregon Coast Beach Connection

“Satellites are easiest to spot around dawn and dusk,” Todd said. “Since they orbit high above Earth, they are often bathed in sunlight, while viewers are sitting in twilight below. Satellites tend to be fainter than passing airplanes, and unlike aircraft, they don't have beacon lights that blink regularly (though some can brighten suddenly in what's called a flare). Satellites often can be seen fading in brightness as their orbits carry them into darkness above the planet's night side. Alternately, they can appear from nothing brightening as they head into day, experiencing an orbital sunrise.”

All that Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff have seen with their own eyes. Right now, the show gets wilder about 4 a.m.

Weird Colors More Likely Now

Satellite above Pacific City in 2024 - courtesy Pillar French

A couple of times in early April a satellite would suddenly turn a bright red or orange. It wasn't burning up. A trained eye could see that. But we thought it was catching sunrise colors – but not quite. There was a twist.

“The 'wild' colors are caused by the same physics as a sunset: When you see them at 20 degrees or lower, their light has to travel through a much thicker layer of Earth's atmosphere to reach you,” Todd said. “The atmosphere scatters away blue and green light, leaving only the longer wavelengths - the oranges and reds. As the satellite rotates or moves through the flare zone, the reflection can become concentrated, making it look much brighter than a typical star for a few seconds.”

This effect seems to lessen as the season goes on.

Tiny Patch of Satellites: the Flare Zone

Another fascinating aspect is this small patch where activity is high around 3 and 4 a.m. Only about 20 or 30 degrees up, they suddenly appear – then fade quickly.

That is called the “flare zone,” and both Siegel and Todd mentioned this “20-degree" area or "vanishing point.”

“Starlink satellites have large, flat chassis and solar panels. In that specific patch of sky (about 20 degrees up), they act like a mirror, reflecting a beam of sunlight directly into your eyes,” Todd said. “Many Starlink shells are in high-inclination orbits. From mid-northern latitudes, these satellites often 'cluster' or reach their peak height in the north/northeast before descending toward the horizon.”

See Washington Coast Weather - See Oregon Coast Weather -- See weather for Inland Oregon

That 20- to 30-degree patch will grow over the summer, both scientists said. By June through August – especially July – you'll see major traffic all over the sky.

The Darker Side of Satellites

Todd said that according to NASA, as of this month, there are approximately 15,295 active satellites above us. If you count nonfunctional spacecraft, it's more than 18,000. If you count all sorts of other space junk (like stuff from rockets and other manmade debris), it's all well over 33,000.

Bandon photographer Manuela Durson bemoaned the proliferation of them in recent years, joining a chorus of photographers.

“If I only shoot one photo, the satellite streaks are pretty easy to erase, but when doing a Milky way time lapse then you would have to edit each one of the hundreds of photos to get the satellites out first, which is almost impossible.”

Siegel wrote a striking piece about them, which includes how we seem to be reaching a critical mass of satellites awfully quickly. https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/earths-orbit-is-getting-crowded-heres-how-we-avoid-a-disaster/

Siegel told Oregon Coast Beach Connection figuring out exactly what satellites are doing what is getting increasingly difficult and not transparent enough.

“We are conducting a big uncontrolled experiment, and down here on Earth, we're the petrie dish,” he said.

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