Category Archives: light pollution

light pollution, stargazing

Counting Stars and Seeing the Light

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The Great World-wide Star Count

Want to help track the effects of light pollution?  Can you see the night sky from your location?  Can you count?  If you can answer “Yes” to all three questions, the Great World-wide Star Count needs you.

It’s the second year of this effort to use stars to tell how much light pollution is obliterating the night sky view. Scientists use the data that comes from schoolchildren, families and citizen scientists over the period of October 20 through November 3 about which constellations they can see.

It’s pretty simple to do.  First, visit the Great Star Count web site and read the instructions about what to look for and how to report your counts to Star Count HQ. Anybody can do it, and I read last year about how student teams ranging from public and private schools to home-schoolers did the count as part of their classwork.

Those of you in the Northern Hemisphere will look for the constellation Cygnus, while folks in the Southern Hemisphere will look for Sagittarius. Once you find your assigned constellation, you match what you see with charts you download from the Great World Wide Star Count site.

You can observe from the comfort of your back yard or make your way to dark-sky sites where more stars are visible. If you happen to get cloudy nights during the observation period, you will share data about cloud conditions instead.  Every bit of data is important.

Why do this?

Bright outdoor lighting at night is a growing problem for astronomical observing programs around the world and it has an effect on quality of life for people and nature. By participanting in the Great World Wide Star Count you will be able to comparew what you see with what others see. It gives a very clear picture about how star visibility varies from place to place and how light pollution affects all of us (including astronomers). It’s one step toward controlling light pollution (and saving energy in the process).

Hubble Update: According to CNN, there have been some problems implementing the Side B switchover on Hubble Space Telescope. This means that the planned restart of science observations is put off for the time being until engineers figure out how to get around the problems.

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amateur astronomy, astronomy education, light pollution

Can You See the Stars??

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Tell Everybody About It

It’s that time of year again–time for the GLOBE at Night 2008 observation event. It’s something everybody can do, no matter whether you live in a city or out in the country. It’s an easy, 5-step procedure to help determine just how much light pollution is affecting our views of the night sky:

  1. Find your latitude and longitude (the site helps you do this)
  2. Find Orion (the constellation) in the sky by going outside an hour after sunset (your time);
  3. Match your nighttime sky to one of the GLOBE at Night magnitude charts;
  4. Report your observation;
  5. Compare what you see with what others around the world can see.

It’s as easy as that. You can do this as part of a classroom activity, or with your family or friends. But the important thing is to do it. You’ll learn about the sky, about how human activity affects our view of the stars, and where the darkest places are on Earth. Whether you’re a parent, a teacher, or a student, the GLOBE at night site has something to offer; and you have something to offer back: your ability to observe and make reports.

Check it out! Help explore patterns of light pollution on a global scale.