More Dark Skies Fun

Saturday March 20 is the vernal equinox–properly celebrated, in part, by enjoying a sun-shaped pizza for lunch, dinner, or whatever on that day. It’s also the kick-off day for another dark sky event “Dark Skies 2010.” This is a more all-encompassing event, compared to Globe at Night, and also more Twitter-based, for all you New Media people out there. Beginning March 20, wait until dark and then just look out the window or actually go outside!  Report, via Twitter (with the hashtag #darkskies2010), your thoughts and descriptions about what you see, upload pictures and drawings inspired by dark skies, and report  magnitude information by Tweeting particular stars that you can see. Longer items (poetry, short stories, etc.) inspired by dark skies may be emailed to inspired@darkskies2010.com and will be posted.

Globe at Night – Protecting Dark Skies

Each spring in March, for the last five years, people have headed outdoors to look for stars… and it’s not as simple as it sounds. If you live near a large city, a sports stadium, a refinery, or most streetlights, you may not be able to see as many stars as you used to. Light pollution is blocking out all but the brightest stars in the sky.

Globe at Night is a yearly activity designed to increase the awareness of this growing problem. You can help to create a global map of light pollution by observing the constellation Orion on any mostly-clear night during March 3 – 16, matching what you see with maps provided by Globe at Night, and reporting your observations on the Globe at Night website.

Can you (still) see the stars?