How to take an observation:- Go outside wherever you are at least an hour after sunset, and let your eyes adjust for at least 10 minutes.
- Locate the constellation of the month in your sky.
- Go to the Globe at Night reporting webapp to start an observation: https://app.globeatnight.org/
- With a smart phone, the app will put in the date, time, location (latitude/longitude) automatically. Otherwise, type them in. For your location, type the street address closest to your observation along with the city, state or province and country.
- Choose the star chart that looks most closely to what you see toward your constellation. That is, what is the faintest star you can see in the sky and find in the chart?
- Select the amount of cloud cover that you see, and add any notes you'd like. Hit SUBMIT, then you're done!
Lastly, please don't hesitate to send questions our way! If you have a question, someone else surely has a similar one. We want to remove any barriers to participating in this fantastic Citizen Science project, so we're happy to answer questions as best we can!
Tips on participating from Starry Skies North:- Check out the Clear Sky Chart to determine how clear or cloudy the forecast is near you. You can still take observations with some cloud cover.
- It's recommended to let your eyes adjust to some level of darkness before reporting. There are many reasons in the Midwest why you might not want to stand outside for too long... cold, mosquitoes--we get it! If you don't want to stay outside while your eyes adjust, stay inside and turn your lights off instead before going out.
- The project needs observations from everywhere. You don't need to be at a particularly dark or bright place; just get outside and look up!
- Use a sky map app to help you locate the constellation of the campaign. In May, Venus is visible in the evening and often easily identified, so it can be helpful to orient yourself in the sky.
- If you have a handheld sky quality meter (SQM), please help us build out the Starry Skies North set of quantitative sky glow measurements by contributing to our database of measurements. USE THIS LINK.
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