MARS2013 Morocco Mars Analog Field Simulation of the Austrian Space Forum will participate in the GLOBE at NIGHT campaign. The goal of the campaign is to collect data about the visibility of the night sky in different places all over the world. As light pollution is growing because of artificial light sources on the ground, a bright night sky with a clear visibility of the Milky Way disappears from more and more places in the world. Moreover light pollution affects also the biology and ecology e.g. disturbance of no nocturnal animals. Recent medical research see also affects on the human body because of light pollution e.g. worker fatigue, increased headache etc.

MARS2013 Camp “Weyprecht” at Night (c) OeWF (Katja Zanella-Kux)

Therefore the GLOBE at NIGHT campaign aims to raise awareness concerning light pollution and pleads for less light for more star light so future generations will have the possibility to see our beautiful night sky in full glance.

So let’s watch our nighttime sky and submit our observations. It takes only five easy steps:

1. Go outside more than one hour after sunset; ideally you should make the observations after Moonset as well.
2. Find following constellations: ORION, LEO or CRUX. (Find ORION, find LEO, find CRUX)
3. Match the observation with the Magnitude charts on GLOBE at NIGHT
4. Open this Google Spreadsheet.
5. Enter your observation, add in the location comments field “MARS2013”

The deadline for submitting the observations is 27 February.

Tip from our side: If you do the observations in a group you have more fun and you can submit multiple observations.