Tony Berendsen, aka Tony the Star Guide, runs Tahoe Star Tours. How many stars can you see from your backyard, citizen scientist? How bright is your night sky? But that could change with one poorly placed light adding too much brightness to my neighborhood. When I’m home in Reno, I can see our galaxy from my backyard. Some additional methods are Sky Quality Meter ( ), the Bortle Scale ( ), and Dark Sky Meter ( ), an app that works with iPhone.Īs a traveling outreach astronomer, I see the Milky Way in dark sky locations many times during the year. There are several methods for measuring sky brightness Globe at Night uses comparative star charts. If you aren’t constellation-savvy, a stargazing app or star chart from Astronomy Magazine or Sky and Telescope can be very helpful. Constellations are used to identify the area of the sky to be measured. To make and report a measurement, go to Globe at Night ( ) and follow the instructions on what to observe and how to report. This month, measurements are made from Oct. 21 to Oct. 31. The program asks people to become citizen-scientists and to collect sky brightness measurements during specific times of each month of the year. If you take part in sky brightness measurements through the program, you will be contributing to a worldwide map of the sky brightness from the surface of our planet documenting the loss of our view of the stars across the planet. It is true that just one poorly designed light can locally outshine the shimmering majesty of a billion stars in our galaxy.Īccording to their website, “Globe at Night is an international citizen-science campaign to raise the awareness of the impact of light pollution ” it is a program of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. When outside lights are pointing up instead of shielded and reflected to the ground, scattered light brightens the sky. It’s most prominent in urban areas, but exists in rural areas with poorly designed lighting. Even the stars themselves contribute to sky brightness, so if we removed all other sources of light, the sky the night would not be completely dark.īesides the occasional light of the moon, it is human-caused light that obscures the stars from nighttime view. Atmospheric conditions such as clouds and haze can affect brightness too. The brightness of the sky at night depends on a variety of natural and human light sources. Venus can often be seen within a few hours after sunset or before sunrise as the brightest object in the sky (other than the moon). Then during twilight as the sky dims, planets and stars begin to appear as sky brightness fades. Venus is so bright because its thick clouds reflect most of the sunlight that reaches it (about 70) back into space, and because it is the closest planet to Earth. The darkness of the night sky is actually measured as the brightness of the night sky - the brighter the sky, the fewer stars you can see at night.ĭuring the day the sun’s bright light obscures our view of the stars. Maybe you’d even like to become a citizen scientist and make a measurement from your backyard contributing data to the Globe at Night campaign. If you're a stargazer, you may be interested to know how to measure the darkness of your night sky.
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