Sir Andrew Motion launches Star Count 2013: a campaign to stop light pollution preventing people from seeing the stars. Star Count 2013 is organised in partnership with the British Astronomical Association’s Campaign for Dark Skies. The campaign is vital for understanding the problems of light pollution, and the survey results will help during negotiations with local community councils.
Participants need to have no existing knowledge of the night sky – just the ability to count, and five minutes of spare time. They can simply go out after dark any time between Friday, February 8 and Saturday, February 16, and count the number of stars they can see within the four corner points of the Orion constellation.
Participants then enter their survey results online at cpre.org.uk. Seeing more than 30 stars within Orion means the observer is lucky enough to have truly dark skies; fewer than 10 indicates severe light pollution. People can also share their photographs and results on the CPRE Facebook and Twitter pages.
-tk-