How many stars can you count?
The British Astronomical Association (BAA), in collaboration with the Campaign for Dark Skies (CfDS) are asking members of the UK public to participate in a nationwide survey of light pollution (via DaveP). The idea is to get as many people as possible to count the number of stars they can see bounded by the shoulders and knees (or feet) of Orion between the 20th and 24th December. Orion is a very easy constellation to spot so this should be fairly easy for most people to do.
If you want to participate, wrap up warm, have a hot drink and go outside for 10 minutes to let your eyes adapt to the dark. As your eyes are adapting you can find Orion in the south (around to the left from where the Sun sets) and identify the shoulders and knees.When you think your eyes have adapted, start counting stars. Once you are happy that you've counted as many as you can, submit your results on the BAA website. While you are outside and not too cold, have a look around at some of the other things you can see. I'll leave it to Ian Morison to tell you what you can see in the night sky during December (MP3: 3.5 MB).
It is just a pity that this isn't an international project.
Comments: How many stars can you count?
I'd be happy to set something up on my website, and pass the results on to the BAA (or maybe get ABC online involved)
Posted by Ian Musgrave on Tuesday 19th Dec 2006 (21:03 UTC)
Ian I only hesitate to say go for it because I don't who is behind it so haven't been able to contact them to see if they would mind getting lots of data from elsewhere. The only extra complications I can think of would be related to the different elevation of Orion in different countries and taking into account the general brightness of the sky in the southern hemisphere due to it being summer. Perhaps a southern version should be done in June to make comparisons easier.
Posted by Stuart on Wednesday 20th Dec 2006 (12:34 UTC)
Nice initiative, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Looks like this fog will be hanging around the South of England until Saturday afternoon, so maybe one day's counting is possible in this period.
Posted by James on Thursday 21st Dec 2006 (12:51 UTC)
Actually, although June/July date would be a good comparison, Orion is below the horizon and not useful. Scorpio is up, but you still have problems making comparisons.
Posted by Ian Musgrave on Thursday 21st Dec 2006 (14:06 UTC)
Ian, arrgh good point. I can't believe I didn't think about that. ;-)
James, we've been having lots of fog up in the north too. Last night it was in a thin enough layer that it was possible to look up and see stars. The fog even acted as a bit of a blanket keeping the light pollution from Manchester slightly trapped.
Posted by Stuart on Thursday 21st Dec 2006 (15:57 UTC)