2012 GLOBE at Night Campaign

It's that time again... time to get outside, check out the sky for a few minutes and make a contribution to preserving dark skies. Time for GLOBE at Night. If you didn't see my posts in 2009 or 2010, read on.


GLOBE at Night is a citizen-science campaign open to people all over the world to raise awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to measure their night sky brightness and report their observations to a website from a computer or smart phone. Light pollution threatens not only our “right to starlight”, but can affect energy consumption, wildlife and health. Through 2011, people in 115 countries contributed 66,000 measurements, making GLOBE at Night one of the most successful light pollution awareness campaigns to date. This year, the campaign takes place over 4 weeks:

• January 14 through 23
• February 12 through 21
• March 13 through 22
• April 11 through 20

To learn how to help, check out the campaign at www.globeatnight.org.

It's That Time Again... GLOBE At Night

When is the last time you looked up and saw the Milky Way at night? Or saw a meteor shower? If you live in an urban or suburban area, it may have been a long, long time. It has been many years for me but I can recall enjoying the splendor of these sights from my backyard when I was younger. Having spent a lot of time looking up at the night sky over the years since then, I've watched it change. Not noticeably from night to night or even year to year, but every few years it's obvious there's less to see.

At work, a common phrase is "what get's measured get's tended to". I think that with light pollution it's the same. It is one thing for someone to look up and realize they can't see what they could when they were a kid but anecdotal evidence isn't science. To make a case for change, to turn the tide and restore the beauty - and benefits - of clear, dark night skies, we need to measure the rate and circumstances of change. Only then can we forecast how much worse it may get in the future and justify steps to restore what we've lost. Or at least avoid losing more.

That's the point of a project called GLOBE At Night. I wrote about it last year so I won't repeat the details (you can find them here), just the invitation... please join me in making a small contribution to improving the world to which our future generations will be born. And do a little science. And learn a little. And have fun doing it.

Here's to darker skies,
Nate

PS. For more information on light pollution and ways to fight it, check out the International Dark-Sky Association.

Help Measure Light Pollution Around the Globe

The GLOBE at Night project is an opportunity for students, parents, teachers, amateur astronomers or anyone else interested to participate in real science. Held this year between March 16th and 28th, the project will use observations made by people around the globe to capture information on current light pollution levels. In addition to telling us what things are like now, the observations will also be compared to information collected in previous years so this is a great way to do your part to help identify how much light pollution has changed in areas all over the world.

Participating is as simple as:

• Find your location in longitude and latitude


• Locate the constellation Orion in the evening sky about an hour after sunset


• Match what you see to examples provided on the GLOBE at Night web site


• Report your observation

It's that easy. The project web site provides everything you need including tools to find your longitude/latitude, magnitude charts and even links to see what others around the world have reported. Keep in mind that the more observations reported, the more accurate and complete the project results will be so you can help by checking the sky over multiple nights and even from other places near where you live.

This is another great way to help celebrate the International Year of Astronomy. Get outside tonight and do your part... I'll be out there, too!

Update: Having gone out and done my observation for tonight (plan on doing other locations over other nights of the project), I have a suggestion: skip the step to look up your longitude and latitude. When you go to the link to report your observation, there is an option there to select long/lat by specifying an address. It is just as simple to wait till you report your observation as to look it up in advance and remember it to enter later on.