There are thousands of stars in the night sky that are visible to the naked eye — or they should be. In major towns and cities around the world you're lucky to see more than a dozen stars on a clear night, and the reason is light pollution.
Light pollution it doesn't just cause problems for star-gazers, it affects energy consumption, health and wildlife, too. But you can make a difference! Join the Globe at Night citizen-scientist campaign and in just a few short minutes you can help us measure the brightness of the night sky around the world.
Taking part is simple, just match the appearance of a famous constellation (Orion or Leo in the northern hemisphere, and Orion or Crux in the southern hemisphere) with one of the seven star charts provided. The charts show progressively fainter stars.
Then, just submit your results to the website via computer, smart phone or tablet, and they'll be combined with thousands of other data sets from round the world to create an interactive map. Over the past 7 years people in 115 countries have contributed over 83,000 measurements, the fantastic results of which can be seen here.
GLOBE at Night is the most successful, light pollution campaign to date. The project will be running a total of five campaigns throughout 2013, the first began 7 January and ends this Sunday (13 January). More information can be found on the Globe at Night website including guides, activities, one-page flyers and postcards advertising the campaign.
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