Cork Sky Friendly Campaign in conjunction with Castlelyons & Bridebrige Tidy Town’s are hosting an event as part of Ireland’s Space Week which takes place nationwide in parallel with World Space Week from 4^th – 10^th October.

The event will be held on Friday 6^th October 2017 at a local farm Castlelyons Co. Cork at 7.00pm until 8.30pm approx.

The event will include a workshop which is designed to raise awareness and engage members of the public in the GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaign. The workshop will inform participants on how to measure their night sky brightness and report their observations to a website from a computer or smart phone. Light pollution threatens not only our “right to starlight”, but can affect energy consumption, wildlife and health. Members of Cork Astronomy club will be on hand for some interactive observing of the night sky and to hone your skills to recognize some of the stars and galaxies. As well as the workshop and interactive observing of the night sky there will be short inputs on the effects of light pollution on our ability to observe the night sky and on the health of wildlife and humans.

Cork Sky Friendly Campaign is a collaboration of organisations interested in raising awareness of the adverse effects of excessive artificial light and protecting the night skies over Cork city and county. They include Blackrock castle Observatory, Cork Astronomy Club, Cork Environmental Forum, Cork Nature Network, Cork Climate Action and Bere Islands Projects Group

Space Week, now in its second year, is designed to encourage people to explore our incredible Universe and raise public awareness of the benefits, challenges, and inspiration of space exploration and Earth observation.   This year’s theme ‘Our Planet, Our Space, Our Time’ and events series will explore how, as 21^st century citizens under one sky, we can use the power of critical thinking and STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) to shape our understanding of life on Earth and our place in Space.  Participants will enjoy stargazing, astronomy talks, workshops, mobile planetarium shows, rocket launches, fun space experiments, they will hear about space careers and they will learn about the Life of an Astronaut. Or discover the Universe from your own home using the fun space activities on spaceweek.ie. Schools are encouraged to Book a Space Speaker for the Classroom and take advantage of a wide range of experts who will share their stories on video throughout Space Week.

Space Week runs from October 4th-10th, 2017.  See www.spaceweek.ie for the full programme of events.  Discover Your Universe!  #SpaceWeek17 www.spaceweek.ie

Globe at Night

The Globe at Night program is an international citizen-science campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to measure their night sky brightness and submit their observations from a computer or smart phone. Light pollution threatens not only our “right to starlight”, but can affect energy consumption, wildlife and health. More than 100,000 measurements have been contributed from people in 115 countries during the campaigns each winter/spring over the last 9 years, making Globe at Night the most successful light pollution awareness campaign to date!

For information and resources, visit us at www.globeatnight.org.

To report measurements, visit  www.globeatnight.org/webapp/. Happy star-hunting!