We could not help but notice today that other Gothamist contributors are getting impatient with the weather. Our patience is running a bit thin as well. While temperatures may rise a smidgen closer to normal the next few days, Mother Nature is apparently in no hurry to grace us with spring-like weather just yet. We may see a few showers through the weekend, but they are likely to be insignificant if they occur. The extended forecast is not much different.
Do you know what begins tonight? GLOBE at Night "an international event designed to observe and record the visible stars as a means of measuring light pollution". In addition to having more than our share of air pollution, New York also has a lot of light pollution. Street lights, office lights, car lights and LED Throwies all prevent us from getting a good view of the night sky. GLOBE is a hands-on science education program for primary and secondary school students. We can see the brighter brighter objects in the sky, but there's too much light to see faint phenomena like the gegenschein. They are hoping to get at least 5000 observations of the night sky from around the world. Participation is easy. All you need to do is compare your observation of the constellation Orion, taken between 7 and 9 p.m. local time (after sunset but before moon rise), with their magnitude chart and report your results. Complete instructions and further information are available from GLOBE at Night.
Orion the Hunter image from NASA.
