Okay, I should have posted this earlier, but we still have a week to get data, so I figured I would see if anyone would like to help out.

One of the projects where I work is called GLOBE at Night. It is a project to measure light pollution in the night sky around the world. Anyone can make measurements wherever they live. It's quick and easy.

All you have to do is go outside on a clear night after its dark and look at the constellation Orion. The GLOBE at Night web site has several pictures of Orion. Some of the pictures have lots of stars which is what you would see under a dark sky. Some have few stars which is what you would see in the middle of a city. Match a picture with what you see. You also need to get the latitude/longitude of the observation which you can do with Google Earth, Maporama, or a similar service.

Observations can be made through March 21st for this year and must be entered into the database by March 31st.

You can find the comparison charts and report observations at the GLOBE at Night web site.

Last year, we had about 4600 observations from 109 countries. You can make more than one observation if you find yourself in different locations (I took a bike ride tonight and made half a dozen observations at different points).

Hope this isn't too much of an ad...we are promoting it wherever we can. I even blogged about it on myspace Smile

Rob

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