Citizen Science (aka DeSci): How does light pollution affect your location
The GlobeAtNight web site & application shows people how to measure light pollution and provides a database and interactive map where observations can be documented and viewed, going back as far as 2006. How does light pollution affect your area, and how has it changed over time?
Introduction
Photo by me
Some years ago, when I was still a child, I noticed that there was a massive difference between the nighttime skies overhead in my neighborhood and nighttime skies in other places where we vacationed like the beach or the mountains.
Later, as an adult, I went on an ocean cruise, and was totally amazed at how many stars were visible at night in the middle of the ocean. And still later, my son, a couple of his high school friends, and myself made some excursions to "dark sky" locations for astronomical viewing. Some of these are documented in these Steem posts:
- The Striking Skies Above Cherry Springs
- Tuckahoe State Park stargazing trip - post 4: Sunset photos
- Planning ideas for dark-sky astronomy road trips
- Photography: Car and Stars
- More stargazing photos from our January 5 trip to Tuckahoe State Park: southern horizon to zenith
Nowadays, at my location, it requires a road-trip just to find skies that are dark enough to see the Milky Way. That wasn't always the case, though, as I have memories of seeing the Milky Way from my neighborhood as a child.
Why is it difficult to find dark skies in many locations now? It's a result of Skyglow and Light Pollution. If electric light sources are not shielded, they can shine into the atmosphere where the light gets scattered and produces a glow that makes it more difficult to see astronomical bodies, like stars and planets. According to Justapedia, 83% of the world's population lives in areas that are affected by light pollution, and 23% of the Earth's land area is impacted by skyglow.
You can find more about light pollution in the Steem article, What's that on the Horizon?: A brief explanation on light pollution..
The Globe At Night
Viewing historical observations
A couple years ago, I came across the Globe At Night web site, which lets ordinary people around the globe participate in a project to measure and report on light pollution. It also provides an interactive map where we can see past measurements that have been taken in an area. For example, here's how my area has changed during the decade between 2013 and 2023.
| 2013 | 2023 |
|
|
The darker the dots on the map, the darker the skies. By sitting them side by side, it appears that recent observations may have seen more light pollution and fewer stars. The web site also gives the ability to download the observations as CSV files, but I haven't played with that, yet.
I think I've probably submitted observations from 2022 through 2024, and all have had limiting magnitudes of 2 or 3, depending upon the direction I was facing (6 is the limit of visibility with the naked eye, and a full moon is -12) .
Observation Campaigns
According to the web site, they have received 5,007 observations so far this year, and their goal is to reach 20,000 during 2024. They also provide instructions for measuring light pollution, here. There is a "Campaign" listed every month that - I presume - aligns with the times when the moon is not making the skies brighter with natural light.
If you'd like to contribute, the next campaign is scheduled for March 31 through April 9. Even if you don't want to submit your observation, you can still follow their instructions to find out how light pollution is affecting your own view of the stars and planets.
In the next two campaigns, people in the Northern hemisphere can measure visibility by looking at the constellation, Leo, and people in the Southern hemisphere can look at Crux (i.e. The Southern Cross). The measurement is done by comparing what we see against these Magnitude Charts. If you scroll down, here, there are also "activity guides" that can be printed.
Photo by me: Nikon Coolpix B500; ISO 125; 25 second exposure; The red and white streaks behind the trees are cars or trucks driving past on the highway; March 20, 2019
So, I invite all Steemizens to check out the web site, learn how to measure the magnitude where you are, and report your results back here.
It might even be a fun and educational activity for parents & kids. You can print out the activity guide and turn it into a blog post.
Or you could check a bunch of nearby locations and log the limiting magnitudes along with PlusCodes and/or Google Words addresses for the location(s).
As a real challenge, you could try to use manual settings on your cell phone or digital camera to get photos of the night sky from one or more locations. (Hint: A tripod helps for this, even with a cell phone.)
Conclusion
There's a new buzz word that's bouncing around Twitter (aka X), DeSci.
Amid the recent global pandemic, the blockchain and biotech communities looked to address these funding inequities and joined to start the Decentralized Science (DeSci) movement. Although it may still be hard to conceive of how diverse groups of people in Discord servers can change the game for scientific funding and publishing, it's clear that blockchain's inherent properties make an interesting case for why this could work.
In addition to a fun hobby, the Steem chain provides another way for citizen scientists to do "DeSci" and get rewarded for it. It's simple enough to couple the methods from GlobeAtNight with the Steem blockchain social media and reward capability in order to encourage participation. It's also possible for Steemizens to organize teams to compete in some of the other DeSci initiatives, like the ones that @o1eh described here.
Lastly, DeSci apps could be built that would make integrated use of Steem's social media and rewards capability as well as its custom_json features for data storage.
If your goal is just to see how light pollution affects your area or to showcase Steem as a possible home for DeSci, I encourage you to visit the GlobeAtNight web site and report back here with your results. You can wait until the next campaign begins on March 31, or you can do a practice run the next time you have dark and clear skies.
Addendum
As long as we're talking about the night sky, don't forget about this other article from @o1eh, Looking at the Sky. In March and April, we have a once in 71-years opportunity to see comet 12P/Pons-Brooks with the naked eye.
Historically it seems that the comet has not exceeded magnitude 3, so unless you use binoculars you'll need to find a viewing location with a limiting magnitude of 4, or maybe higher. Space.com suggests that it might not get brighter than magnitude 5 this time, so a fairly dark location might be required.
With the aid of a good sky chart and a dark sky, it should be readily accessible in binoculars. Its apparent night-to-night motion will now be accelerating as it draws nearer to the sun. By mid-month, it will have shifted into Pisces, the Fishes; now perhaps a 6th-magnitude object, it should be a fine sight for binoculars.
And by the end of March, it may brighten to 5th-magnitude, reaching naked-eye visibility against the backdrop of the zodiacal constellation of Aries. By now, a short tail may also have formed.
Thereafter, the comet will disappear into sunset glow during April and will arrive at perihelion on April 21 at a distance of 72.6 million miles (116.8 million km). 12P/Pons-Brooks passes 22-degrees northeast of the sun in mid-April, but then will fade very rapidly and largely become an object for Southern Hemisphere observers. It will have probably dropped to 6th or 7th magnitude by the end of May and 8th or 9th magnitude by the end of June.
P.S. One week from today, March 24 at 16:05 GMT, will be 8 years since the production of block 1 on the Steem blockchain.
Thank you for your time and attention.
As a general rule, I up-vote comments that demonstrate "proof of reading".
Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.
Pixabay license, source
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It seems that there is no report from Ukraine. Actually, it's not surprising, now people here are not up to it. I wonder if I can do it. In the northwest, the bright lights of an industrial enterprise interfere with observation. But I just checked - the milky way can be seen. However, this is not the milky way that I saw as a child in a village 25 km from my city. Then, it seemed that the whole night sky was shining. There was not a single dark spot - the whole sky was full of stars.
So, March 31. I have bookmarked your post. If the weather permits, I will try to make an observation.
It would be pretty cool if Steemizens can put a few countries onto the map for them. For no particular reason, I have a feeling that they're mostly clustered around universities right now. If so, maybe the people we can reach here will help to provide very different geographic coverage.
I have a light dome from a business district to the east, so I have generally tried to make my observations late enough that the constellation is already overhead or even in the western portion of the sky. In your case, I guess you'd hope to catch it early, before it moves too far west.
I have seen skies like that, but never where I lived. At best, the Milky Way was just faintly visible, and only on certain nights, when I was a kid. It's nice that you're able to have that childhood memory.
Sorry, but now I want to say something off topic.
I would like to advise you to apply for a Steem Representative. Everything you do here corresponds to the status of the Representative. I understand that you don't need this status, but I think that the Representative status needs you. The fact is that the Steemit team would like to recruit representatives from different regions of the planet. We have never had a representative from North America, and especially from the birthplace of blockchain - the USA. You are the only one who can become it.
You will not need to spend extra time for this role, you will not be limited by any framework or additional work. Each Representative decides for himself what he will do for the benefit of the blockchain, and you are already doing a lot. What are only your ideas and statistical summaries worth!
The Steem Representative initiative is still quite young and, I think, in its infancy. Your participation would add importance to this initiative.
Don't worry about the fact that you will need to write reports. Only those who want to do it. You can not write reports at all. However, the report can be a great opportunity to convey your opinion or some information.
Please think about it. I think this is a chance to do a little favor for Steem. You have until March 20 to apply.
Thanks for the vote of confidence! I didn't have time to write up an application post this week, anyway, but I'll give it some thought for next month.
TBH, time is still a big factor for me. I understand the points you raise, but if I were to sign up, I'm sure that I'd have certain expectations for myself. My first priority for Steem activities right now is building my Java and Open Source skills and working towards building a peer-to-peer client (and I'm already having trouble finding time for that), so I don't want to commit to something that's going to make it even harder to find time for those activities.
I expected such an answer 😁 In fact, I understand that there is no point in taking on additional responsibilities for you, but if you still want to join, I think the door will always be open to you. In addition, the beauty of Steem is that everyone here can do only what they want or what they have time for 🙂.
Greetings, and thanks for sharing this interesting tool! I'll try to participate in the next campaign and will make sure to also read about @o1eh contributions about the sky subject, since astronomy is one of the topics I've always had more interest to lear about them time... I'll also try to capture and post soon some photos of the night sky here im Brazil! Have a nice sunday, cheers
I look forward to seeing your photos! I just took a quick look at their interactive map, and it seems that so far there are no observations in Brazil for 2024. In 2023, I'm not sure if they had 1 or 2, since one of the observations seems to show as Brazil on the map, but it says "Uruguay" in the pop-up window.
Upvoted. Thank You for sending some of your rewards to @null. It will make Steem stronger.
TEAM 1
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