2009 - International Year of Astronomy
This page was last amended on 1st April, 2009.
To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first use of a telescope to
explore the night skies, Unesco has declared 2009 as the International Year of
Astronomy.
Light Pollution
Steve Owens, UK Coordinator, International Year of Astronomy, has sent us
this email. It gives all of us a simple opportunity to take part in a
world-wide IYA initiative ...
"Today marks the start of
GLOBE at Night 2009, an exciting global project to map light
pollution around the world, and YOU can take part!
It's really very easy. Just download the Orion star maps from the GLOBE at
Night website
www.globe.gov/GaN
and
on the next clear night between now and 28 March, head outside to find Orion.
Once you have found it, compare what you see in the sky above you to the
charts from the website to get a measure of the darkness (or brightness!) of
your sky.
Orion will appear towards the south-west, and you should wait for at
least an hour after the sun sets before making your observations. Orion itself
sets at 2300, so the best time to make the comparison is between 2000 and
2200.
Once you know your sky
magnitude rating you can upload this to the GLOBE
at Night website and compare your measurements with the thousands of others
that will be flooding in from around the world.
It would be great to get readings from all the UK amateur astronomy societies;
it would be even better if you tell all your members about this
simple yet engaging way to get involved in IYA2009."
(Martin Humphries writes:
I have made this observation from my garden in Kidderminster at about 21:00 on
29th March 2009. I could see stars dimmer than magnitude 4 but not as dim as
magnitude 5 in the stunningly clear sky that evening. This confirms my
previous opinion that I can see stars down to about magnitude 4.5, which is
the limit I put on star charts published on this web site.)