Participate in The Great Worldwide Star Count, Please!

I just found out about this. From October 1 – 15th, the Windows to the Universe is coordinating observations of sky glow from around the world.

It’s very similar the GLOBE at Night project from earlier this year. While GLOBE at Night was more of a citizen’s awareness project, The Great Worldwide Star Count looks to be more scientific.

The idea is simple: if you’re in the northern hemisphere, go outside and find the constellation Cygnus and compare what you see with one of the Magnitude Charts they have. Just like GLOBE at night, except you’re looking at Cygnus instead of Orion.

If you’re in the southern hemisphere, then you find Sagitarrius.

I strongly urge you guys to get out there and participate. In order to get back our dark skies, we need to see just how bad the problem is, so we need data. This measurement takes less than 10 minutes to do and will help greatly the cause of reducing light pollution.

You only need to do it once between now and the 15th, unless you go somewhere else, then by all means take a measurement there. Back in March, I made estimates from my home in Louisville, Boulder, Estes Park and Breckenridge (hey, I hadda go skiiing).

Technorati Tags: GLOBE at Night, light pollution, The Great Worldwide Star Count