Earth Gauge: Get Ready for GLOBE at Night
With half of the world’s population now living in cities, many urban dwellers have never experienced the wonderment of pristinely dark skies and maybe never will. This loss, caused by light pollution, is a concern on many fronts: safety, energy conservation and effects on wildlife, as well as our ability to view the stars. Some examples of the impact of light at night include disorientation of sea turtle hatchlings due to beachfront lights, behavioral changes in salamanders, and disturbances in the behavior of nocturnal animals.
Viewer Tip: GLOBE at Night is an annual two-week campaign that helps to address the light pollution issue locally as well as globally. The campaign begins this week, running from March 3-16, 2010. You are invited along with everyone all over the world to record the brightness of your night sky by matching its appearance toward the constellation Orion with star maps found at
Learn more about light pollution, the Orion constellation and find tips for participating in GLOBE at Night:
www.globeatnight.org/observe_magnitude.html. You then submit your measurements on-line at www.globeatnight.org/report.html with your date, time and location. A few weeks later, organizers release a map of light-pollution levels worldwide. Over the last four two-week GLOBE at Night campaigns, volunteers from over 100 nations have contributed 35,000 measurements!www.globeatnight.org.Information courtesy of Earth Gauge.
Please visit: www.earthgauge.net for more info.
