CPRE Star Count - A Chance to Start Fighting Back

[Roy]

The Council for the Preservation of Rural England (CPRE) are having a 'Star Count' over the next week to gauge how dark, or should that be how light polluted our night skies are. The CPRE has long been championing to reduce light pollution, and here is an opportunity to help provide them with ammunition to canvas on our behalf. All you have to do is before 14 February is go out on a clear night (????) after 7:00 pm and count the number of stars you can see with the unaided eye (no telescopes or binoculars) inside  the four corners of Orion. Full details are here:

https://www.cpre.org.uk/what-we-care-about/nature-and-landscapes/dark-skies/star-count-2021/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAmfmABhCHARIsACwPRAAbu0uo7KztrxSXQ-TVHmAznulcERc8u8oU956YrODYSSn92azIip0aAnMyEALw_wcB

I hope you will all participate.

Roy

(Roy Peters, Chair OAS)

[Rick]

It was cloudy earlier, but the sky is clear now, Ursa Major is overhead, and Orion set several hours ago...

[Rick]

Just two more nights, and we've not had a clear evening sky yet. The clouds have cleared in the early mornigs sometimes, but by that time Orion's long set...

Anyone managed to get a count?

[AndrewRamsay]

Managed a count on Thursday evening around 8:30 pm - briefly clear in the southeast and 9 stars made themselves available through the orange soup above my back garden in Hayes.

[The Thing]

I get to around 25. But I'm in rural France🙂🔭🦇 Bortle 4 I believe.

[Rick]

Another cloudy night last night here...

...and last night. No count this year.

[NoelC]

Yeah - another fat zero here too. The website is still open, but not sure it will count now.
Noel

[Roy]

Sue saw 7 and I saw 6 on Wednesday 10 at 20:15, but there was a fine mist which I suspect knocked it back a few. Interestingly the CPRE doesn't allow one to record the seeing conditions which I would have thought was quite important in a survey of this kind. Maybe they think the seeing will average out over the years but that's not a valid argument if you are looking to establish trends over time.

Roy

[NoelC]

I contacted my local rep for CPRE Kent and they say they will count all responses even if they are late (not sure when they are collating the results).
I suspect this is intended to be a simple test for transparency rather than seeing.

Noel