The Globe at Night program is an international citizen-science campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen scientists to measure their night-sky brightness and submit their observations from a computer or smart phone. Light pollution threatens not only our “right to starlight,” but also can adversely affect energy consumption, wildlife, and health. Nearly 100,000 measurements have been contributed from people in 115 countries during the campaigns over the last 8 years, making Globe at Night the most successful light-pollution-awareness program to date.
Globe at Night offers four ways to measure night-sky brightness: the traditional method of matching what you see in a constellation with star charts; the use of a handheld digital device called a Sky Quality Meter; the use of the Loss of the Night app on Android phones, which asks you to find certain stars as a measure of star visibility; or the use of the Dark Sky Meter app on iPhone 4s and iPhone 5/5s/5c, which uses the phone’s camera to measure night-sky brightness.
For 2014, the campaign will be collecting observations during particular dates each month, roughly between 8pm-10pm local time, when the Moon is not up. Those dates are:
* January 20-29
* February 19-28
* March 21-30
* April 20-29
* May 19-28
* June 17-26
* July 16-25
* August 15-24
* September 15-24
* October 14-23
* November 12-21
* December 11-20
For more information http://www.globeatnight.org/