This is one section of a long-exposure photograph taken on Kitt Peak, AZ, on January 3, 2001. Others produce streaks that we interpret as sun glinting briefly off a satellite in a totally different orbit, and a few remain unidentified. At this distance, their orbital speed matches the turning of Earth far below, allowing them to appear as a stationary target for television signal reception dishes and ground-based communications antennae.
Minimal equipment is required.
In fact, Livingston places his Hasselblad camera on a solid surface like a rock for maximum stability instead of using a tripod, propping the camera to point skyward and south toward the celestial equator. Beyond a camera capable of time exposures, Livingston's equipments consists of moderate speed Ektachrome 100-S film, a Zeiss lens with a focal length of 80 mm, and a simple pocket compass to point the camera southward. The matter of identifying the satellites becomes a repeatable process of measuring the spacing between the satellites based on a scale derived from the magnification of the camera lens. Once converted to degrees, the satellite spacing is then compared to the spacing between the satellites as listed on the Internet. The images available at the URL above include pointers at the Orion Nebula and the bright star Rigel, as examples.