Globe-at-Night Survey Wants You!

The Globe-at-Night program is an annual program where you (yes, you) can help by providing data on the visibility of stars in the night sky. Your role as an amateur scientist is to make some observations (details on their web site), record the results, and submit them to the Globe-at-Night program. Your observations, along with those of thousands of others around the planet, will be combined to provide information on the impact of night-time lighting on the sky. You can also compare what you can (and can’t) see with measurements of others from around the world.

While that may not seem very important, the effect of night-time lighting on the sky provides a way of estimating other environmental effects, too. If you are a parent, you will find a downloadable set of materials to do this with your children. And in the process you can become an amateur scientist and science teacher (no math required, but you have to read a map).

The process is simple (and detailed on their web site), but here’s the quick run-down.

1. Find your latitude and longitude.
2. Go outside to find Orion after sunset.
3. Match what you can see with one of the provided charts.
4. Report your observation.
5. Compare with what others can see.

It’s easy. So get outside with your children!