Armed with a telescope

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Humans have always been attracted by the endless cosmos. Our international team stepped into the shoes of astronomers and held an observation of the night sky. We used our naked eyes, a telescope, mobile phone online apps, and a moon projector.

The event started at 9 pm with a walk to a dark place in the town of Vratsa which became our observation point. On the way we discussed the types of light pollution on either side of Democratsia Blv. where the coordinator school is located, the types of street lamps, requirements for shielding, difference among white, yellow and blue light and fill in our observation results in work sheets. 

To measure the brightness of the street light s we implemented the following apps in our workshop:

• - LUX - we were able to calibrate the measurements with easy controls and share the data with other members of pur project team. To do the measurements of the street light properly, we used the built-in sensors of our mobiles.

• - Protractor - we were able to measure the angles at which light from shielded street lights falls on the ground. We used the data to study if the street lights cause high levels of unwanted light pollution. 

The most interesting part of our Astro observation night was studying the constellations, learning how to find the North Star, learning about meteor showers and phases of the Moon.

We heard some important rules to do a successful stargazing:

• - choose the darkest open place possible

• - leave some time for your eyes to adapt to darkness

• - forget about browsing on the phone before you start stargazing - bright light will ruin your night vision

• - turn your phone screen red to preserve darkness adaptation

• - try to see the difference of the star colours

• - remember "Stars twinkle, planets don't" when you try to distinguish both.

To add to the impression you can use planetarium apps to help you around the night sky. The apps help you identify stars, constellations, planets, comets, satellites (such as the ISS), and other deep sky objects in real-time in the sky above you in just a few seconds, just by pointing the phone at the sky.

We used Stellarium but here are some other ones that you can easily install:

Astrospheric, SkySafari, PhotoPills, Clear Outside, etc.