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Help Map Global Light Pollution, By Starlight
Kilrah_il writes "Light pollution is a big problem these days, affecting not only astronomers and wild life, but also everyone else because of wasted energy. GLOBE at Night aims to raise awareness by urging people to go outside and find out how much light pollution there is in their area. 'The campaign is easy and fun to do. First, you match the appearance of the constellation Orion in the first campaign (and Leo or Crux in the second campaign) with simple star maps of progressively fainter stars found. Then you submit your measurements, including the date, time, and location of your comparison. After all the campaign's observations are submitted, the project's organizers release a map of light-pollution levels worldwide.'"
Isn't most important astronomy these days done by space-based telescopes?
I'm not exactly an astronomer, more of an enthusiast, but I'd love to be able to buy a good telescope and use it to see brilliant galaxy and nebula images. I can't see shit in the sky around here in Northeast Ohio--and I about shat myself when I saw this image, taken with just a plain camera, with no fucking telescope:
http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details/2376/the_milky_way_galaxy.html
It really pisses me off that I can't see this kind of clarity, far past Earth's atmosphere and into outer space. I'm lucky that I can see the very "brightest" stars in the sky and maybe a few of the bigger and brighter planets, like Jupiter and Saturn. It fucking sucks. I always thought it was "just that way" until I learned more about light pollution, and some of the from-ground images I've seen on the Internet (including the above) really made me aware of what I've been missing since... well, since I first time I ever looked at the sky.