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Globe At Night

Globe at Night is an international citizen-science campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to measure & submit their night sky brightness observations.

Cygnus

Can you find Cygnus?

Cygnus the Swan is easy to find as it flies south along the path of the Milky Way. It is easiest to spot by looking straight up and looking for the three brightest stars forming what is known as the Summer Triangle. The bright star in the lower left of this triangle is Deneb, the tail of the swan. By using this star and looking in toward the center of the triangle, you can now spot Cygnus.

Visible in: Northern hemisphere

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Pegasus

Can you find Pegasus?

Pegasus, the winged horse ridden by Perseus to rescue Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus is easiest to find during Autumn. The easiest way to find Pegasus is to look overhead and find the great square of Pegasus found adjacent to the milky way. This great square is the body of Pegasus and the body and head extend outwards.

Visible in: Northern hemisphere

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Grus

Can you find Grus?

To find Grus, look directly south. You will see four bright stars making their way from left to right in the sky. These stars also happen to line up in brightness order. The brightest one, Sirius, will be somewhat higher in the sky than the other three, and is the farthest to the left. The next one to the right is Canopus, then Achernar. The fourth one is found in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, and is called Fomalhaut. Grus is found between the Achernar and Fomalhaut, and is located about 15 degrees lower in the sky than a line drawn between those two stars. Look for a triangle formed by Grus’ three brightest stars (the third brightest star is actually two stars), the two dimmer stars in the triangle may appear red. The triangle forms the body of the crane with Grus’ neck stretching out to the West, and the wings to the North and South.

Visible in: Southern hemisphere

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Join us for the October, 2024 campaign!

We are off to a great start this year with 10779 observations so far! Help us reach our goal of 20000 data points for 2024!
10779
Observations from 2024
20000
Goal for 2024
303320
Total Observations

How to report data?

Practice finding all the Globe at Night Constellations, when you are done practicing follow the 6 steps:

Go Outside

During the campaign dates, go outside more than an hour after sunset (8-10 pm local time). The Moon should not be up. Let your eyes become used to the dark for 10 minutes before your first observation.

Use App

Use a night sky app on your phone outside to find the constellation from where you are.

Open Form

Go to the Globe at Night Report page to start to enter Globe at Night measurements. Make sure you are in “Nighttime version”

Fill your location

With a smart phone, the app will put in the date, time, location (latitude/longitude) automatically. Otherwise please type them in. For your location, type the street address closest to your observation along with the city, state or province and country.

Choose the star

Choose the star chart that looks most closely to what you see toward your constellation. That is, what is the faintest star you can see in the sky and find in the chart?

Submit

Chose the amount of cloud cover at the time of observation and then click on the “SUBMIT DATA” button.
Resources for 2024

Resources for 2024

Globe at Night is truly an international campaign. Our Activity Guides, Postcards, and the data reporting webapp have been translated into many languages. These are all available to download from our Resources page.

Globe at Night Webapp

Globe at Night Webapp

Whether you use a smartphone, tablet or computer, you can submit your data in real time with our webapp - now available in 28 languages! Help us make 2021 a record year!

International Dark Sky Week

International Dark Sky Week

We invite you to join us as we discover the night together and learn about the harmful effects of light pollution and what we can do to embrace the dark and save the night. April 2-8, 2024. Learn more at idsw.darksky.org

See how your region is doing this year below. If you don't see very many data points, consider going outside tonight and contributing your own! Compare to other regions or previous years with our regional map generator.