If you live in the U.K., you can help the Countryside Charity take a survey of how dark the nighttime skies are. They’re asking people to go outside after 7 pm between February 21 and February 28, wait till their eyes adjust to the dark, and report how many stars they see inside the Orion constellation. You don’t need binoculars or telescopes or anything other than yourself and the skies and a clear night.
That last part–the clear night–is going to be hard. I can’t remember the last one we had.
It’s as useful to report from a city where you’d be lucky to see a single star as it is to report from the darks of Bodmin Moor. It’s all information. Follow the link above and you’ll find the instructions (there aren’t many) and a way to report your count.
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As long the weather’s come into the conversation, I might as well tell you that as soon as Britain’s hit by a storm big enough to earn itself a name, it will be Storm Ellen. Batten down the hatches.
Notes from the U.K. 
Storm Ellen, eh? Channeling Johnson and Patel.See if you can factor in Campbell and dump them somewhere deep.
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Should be easy.
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Wow ! This is a VERY ambitious project !
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I have no idea how many responses they get in an average year, but it seems to be enough for at least a rough map of how visible the stars are at various points in the UK. The problem, at least based on the form I filled out last year, is that if the darkest areas have postcodes, I don’t know how to find them since they’re the places that don’t have buildings. And postcodes are overwhelmingly the UK’s way of locating things, people, and places.
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Given the overwhelming light pollution, I’d ask the Observatory or some similar place .The chaps who do the ordnance maps, maybe. Or that “bloke in the pub.” You know, the one who knows where Lord Lucan is :-)
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Of course. That bloke. The one who can report on the number of stars in the bottom of his glass.
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Storm Ellen. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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Well, I didn’t think I should be the one to say that, but now that you have…
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Ellen, thanks once more for your very entertaining and flavorful blogs. If school kids had access to such writing, they’d know a hell of a lot more about history amd cultural shenanigans that schools ever teach them, and might find the subjects enjoyable instead of deadly boring.
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Thanks, Scott. I have one advantage over the good folks who write textbooks: I set out to amuse myself. They don’t have that luxury.
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I remember last year’s count. On the single night when it was clear enough to see stars it was too cold to hang around outside counting them.
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And I had grand ideas about going someplace fairly dark but got stopped by the problem of not knowing how to find the postcode for a non-building. So I went out behind the house and spotted Orion’s best but not much else.
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I remember going out on a fairly hazy night and not being sure whether I could see 5 or 6 stars and thinking that it wasn’t worth it. One night this week was very clear and I could see loads of stars in Orion’s belt, even in the middle of a town.
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Nice.
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I did it this evening. I wonder if they take the weather into account, or the fact that your next door neighbour’s chimney pot is in your line of vision, or even that your next door neighbour has a light on in the back room. I saw 11 – one step up from severe light pollution.
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I just did it as well. I saw nine, but I should, in fairness, wait till our own lights are out. I’ll check again before bedtime.
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Storm Ellen! Wow, yeah, I can see it. Love that humorous ending. Made it worth reading the—why would counting Orion’s stars be so bloody important—post. 🤣😏🤔 Christine
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Oh, I don’t know. The organization, I think, is trying to raise awareness of light pollution, so mapping the parts of the country where you get a decent view of the stars does seem like a worthwhile exercise.
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Now I get it. There’s more than nine million street lamps and 27 million offices, factories, warehouses and homes in the U.K., the quantities of light cast into the sky is vast. Artificial light that’s excessive, obtrusive and ultimately wasteful is called light pollution, and it directly influences how bright the night skies appear. Thank you Google! Star gazing is peaceful! 🥳🎶😊
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For a minute there, I thought you had those statistics in your head. I can’t tell you how impressed I was.
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I look everything up. 🤣 Hey, I’m into lifelong education—any topic! 🥳🎶
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I have to admit, Google’s made that easy to do. I only wish I remembered everything–or a tenth of the things–I look up.
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I dread the day I get a Google message—You’ve looked that up already on (too many dates to list). 🤣
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Nah. Lord Google needs those clicks. He’ll never let you know that.
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Forgot about the money part! Maybe a message to keep google ing. You’re on the top executive list of googlers. 🙄
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Exactly!
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I guess the principle is the same as the way they used to actually do blood counts (even in my college days) They put blood on a slide, placed a little grid (like a tic-tac-toe grid) on the sample and literally counted all the blood cells inside the center grid. Then they multiplied by some formula to approximate the total “blood count.”
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Before the police (at least in the US) stopped doing crowd counts for demonstrations, they did the same thing. It’s a rough guide, since people can fairly predictably space themselves more tightly and more closely together in different parts of a space, but it was close enough for their purposes.
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Wonder if it is still used on – say – the crowds at an inauguration ?
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Last I heard–and it was a long time ago–the police realized they really didn’t have to provide a crowd estimate. And if you’re an insecure president, you just make up the numbers.
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It’s been so gloomy here that I can’t remember the last time I saw any stars at night!
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There too? We’ve had so much rain that it’s beginning to seem like a permanent condition.
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Yes, it’s been sunny this weekend for the first time in ages. It’s become unusual to not be overcast.
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After 40 years in Minnesota, I’ve sworn not to complain about rain, but it is starting to feel–um, is it okay to say repetitive? That’s not a full-out complaint, is it?
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Storm Ellen? Oh my, that’s going to cause some damage.
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I wonder if I get to pick and choose who and what gets damaged. I could get into this.
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I don’t think they let you steer…sorry.
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Fools.
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I love that reply! :D Ellen, your range of topics is quite something. Always either learn something or am amused, usually both.
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Good to hear, Jean. Thanks.
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Can’t see any in Soho 😂
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Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. I didn’t do very well from my back garden here in Cornwall either. This is the second or third year I’ve looked, and I always mean to go up to the moor but somehow I never get there.
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