GLOBE at Night Light Pollution Awareness

The GLOBE at Night program starts today, March 16th and runs through April 7th. This is the 2nd year of the GLOBE at Night program but this year they are part of the IYA2009 effort to report on light pollution around the world.

2008 Observations

The cool thing is how easy it is to participate. You need no telescope, just your eyes, a clear sky, and some information about your location.

The website guides you through the process of getting your latitude and longitude and then tells you how to find the constellation Orion, and then has you compare the pattern of stars you see to some templates that represent how light polluted your skies are so that data can be added in to help give a clearer picture of how much light pollution there is.

You are encouraged to participate more than once and hopefully from different locations, so give it a try.

Looking W from Lat 20N (click to enlarge or print)

GLOBE At Night: March 16th – April 7th; Location: Earth