LOOK UP: When you live in an area as unspoiled as ours, it’s
easy to take some simple things for granted. Like a sky full of
stars.
Would you believe that as many as half the world’s population
has never experienced such a sight? It’s true.
Potter County has been recognized as having the first ever
gold-level dark sky park, Cherry Springs State Park, recognized not
only by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, but
also internationally by the International Dark Sky Association, the
leading authority on night sky preservation.
Park officials tell us about two local events – and inviting
your participating, of course – to focus on the preservation of
night sky around the world. The first event will run from March
16-28.
Called “the GLOBE at Night Program,” the event encourages
everyone – students, educators, dark sky advocates and the general
public – to collect data from skies in your area and then report
them online to a world map.
GLOBE at Night is a central piece of the Dark Skies Awareness
Global Cornerstone Project for the International Year of Astronomy
in 2009.
The five easy Star-Hunting Steps are: 1) Find your latitude and
longitude. 2) Find the constellation Orion by going outside an hour
after sunset (about 7-10 p.m. local time). 3) Match your nighttime
sky to one of the magnitude charts at the GLOBE website. 4) Report
your observations and … 5) Compare your observation to thousands
around the world.
Detailed information to complete all of the above is available
at the GLOBE at Night website at www.globe.gov/GaN/
As an added bonus, any area school classrooms that complete the
project can also receive a certificate of participation from the
Cherry Springs Dark Sky Fund/Association by having their teacher
contact the Lyman Run State Park office.
There’s a second project, too, on March 28 but we’ll have to
wait until we have more space to fill you in on all the details.
Called “Earth Hour,” its focus will be to get residents around the
globe to turn off their lights for a single hour on this day.
