How many stars can you see?

Posted by Michael Bakich
on Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Those of you who know me or have read some of my stories realize I’m kind of a crusader against light pollution. I’ll take any opportunity to rail against it or to let you know of a worthwhile project that will help decrease it. Well, I’ve found another one.

For the past several years, a project to determine the darkness of our night sky has been underway, and you can help. The Globe at Night project invites people from all over the world to go outside an hour after sunset and compare a set of maps to your view of the constellation Orion the Hunter.

Globe at Night provides eight magnitude maps. The first shows a cloudy sky; the last shows a view of Orion you’ll see only from the darkest locations.

To learn more about Globe at Night, go to their web site. You’ll find all sorts of cool applications that show the effect light pollution has on our views of the stars. Be sure to click on “Map,” and then click on the topmost map, which shows the results from all observations made in 2008.

I hope you’ll all take a few minutes in 2009 to participate in this worthy project. It’s great that we’re cleaning up our air and water. Let’s clean up our sky as well.

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