New Space and Tech

Join the Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2011 Campaign

By Keith Cowing
April 8, 2013
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GLOBE at Night encourages citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of the night sky. During 2 weeks of moonless evenings, children and adults match the appearance of a constellation (Leo in the northern hemisphere and Crux or Leo in the southern hemisphere) with 7 star charts of progressively fainter stars found at http://www.globeatnight.org. Participants then submit their choice of star chart online with their date, time and location to help create a light pollution map worldwide.

The GLOBE at Night 2011 campaign dates are March 22-April 4, 2011, (for the Northern Hemisphere) and March 24-April 6, 2011, (for the Southern Hemisphere). Over 60,000 measurements have been contributed from more than 100 countries over the last 5 years of two-week campaigns.

This year children and adults can submit their measurements in real-time if they have a smart phone or tablet. To do this, use the web application at http://www.globeatnight.org/webapp/. With smart phones and tablets, the location, date and time are put in automatically. And if you do not have a smart phone or tablet, there are user-friendly tools on the GLOBE at Night report page to find latitude and longitude.

Through GLOBE at Night, students, teachers, parents and community members are amassing a data set from which they can explore the nature of light pollution locally and across the globe. Make a difference and join the GLOBE at Night efforts in 2011. Activity packets, one-page flyers and postcards advertising the campaign are available at http://www.globeatnight.org.

Please email any questions about GLOBE at Night to Connie Walker at cwalker@noao.edu.

SpaceRef co-founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.