Join Space Place in a citizen science project where together we take stock of light pollution in Wellington region.
Space Place is collaborating on this project with Globe at Night Citizen Science.
A computer or a phone with internet access.
A clear sky and a map of the constellation we are observing (there will be different constellations throughout the year).
Let’s observe how many stars we can see from our street at night and then report the data online.
The best time to do these observations is around New Moon when the Moon is not visible in the night sky. This is because the light from the Moon washes out the stars in the sky (just like artificial light pollution), so when doing stargazing astronomers and stargazers tend to avoid the Moon.
Here are the dates for 2020 for which we are going to do these observations:
Open Globe at Night website and get familiarised with how to fill in the observation reporting form. This is the form we are going to use to submit the observations.
As the page opens, the browser can fill in automatically a series of questions such as the date and time of your observations and your location.
You can also enable the location when you open the page.
Or you can input the data manually.
Once the location matches, click “location correct”
Please fill in the location comments below, for example:
Let’s get familiarised with the sky charts provided, we will be working with these charts so it is important to understand them.
On the Globe at Night site, if you hover your cursor over the small pictures at the bottom of the chart’s section on the webpage, you will get a red square on top of the thumbnail, that marks Mag 0, Mag 1, Mag 2, Mag 3, etc.
Magnitude Charts on Globe at Night site
As an example, when pressing the thumbnail that says Mag 2, the corresponding picture appears. You will see the picture changing as you press the different thumbnails.
Depending on how dark your sky is, you will see more or fewer stars in the sky. Try and match what you see in the sky at the time of your observation with one of these maps.
We also made our own Space Place magnitude maps, to show you a pictorial view of how the same sky would look like at different magnitudes.
Either of these sets of maps will help you figure out how many stars you can see in the sky.
Note which map shows the closest image to what you saw in the sky. Usually, we figure that out by counting how many stars we can see around the Southern Cross.
Enter your observations on the Globe at Night reporting webpage.
If you get stuck please email Space Place or send us a message on social media (Facebook or Instagram)
If you managed to print the maps, take them with you and use them to count the stars. Use a red light torch to read the maps (it will be dark and red light does the least damage to the dark adaptation.)
If you saved the maps on your device, make sure the screen is set to night mode – where the screen gets red or amber – again, so that light from your device’s screen does not break down your dark adaptation.
If you use the link from Globe at Night on your phone, there’s an option to switch on the red background, go ahead and use that it will be good for your eyes.
Make a note of how many clouds you saw in the sky during your observation session.
We did not use a Sky Quality Meter for this, we only used our eyes. However, if you do have a Sky Quality Meter, then please go ahead and use it.
The more observations you do the better, so if you can please come back as often as you can.
The above pictures are a simulation of the sky done with SkySafari 6 Pro. What you see in each of the pictures is the numbers of stars that you will be able to observe in the night sky for different magnitudes sky. For instance if your sky has a lot of light pollution, then you will see less stars.
