Radio 4 and light pollution

[Rick]

This morning there was a report on light pollution during the Today programme on Radio 4. There's also a link on the Today website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/

See particularly this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/email/stars_form.shtml

[Greg]

Excellent Rick - thanks. I've filled in the questionnaire. Interesting reading the whole of that. Do you think we ought to have something at the library tomorrow?

[Ian]

that star count is a idea good. I wonder if they could do this sort of thing envolving a wider audience, such as part of the National Science Week or perhaps a Blue Peter Campaign. It'd add some interesting statistics for the current review of the impact of light polution.

[Rick]

It'll be interesting to see what sort of statistics they manage to gather from that. Some of the Today programme things have collected significant information. It'd probably be worth adding the star-counting exercise to any comment you're already making on light pollution. My gut feel is that it isn't quite systematic enough though.

Maybe we should try to come up with some repeatable measure that we can use at every observing evening to try to keep a record of the problem? Dunno how though....

[Rick]

Apparently Robin Scagell was on the 1pm TV news. I heard a report on the 6pm Radio 4 news . None of them have yet mentioned the economic aspect, but the CPRE are definitely trying to get something rolling, and the report on the 6pm news had some figures on how much worse things have become in the lastten years.

[Rick]

The "Today" programme had a report on light pollution this morning. With a bit of luck you can listen to it (for the next few days, anyway) via the BBC "Listen Again" service:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today3_light_20070214.ram

or go to Wednesday's programme from http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/