Wanted: Star-counters for NASA

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency are asking students, and anyone else who's interested, to take part in an experiment to determine just how much the ability to see stars varies from one place to another.

The test, to be carried out in conjunction with the space shuttle mission that began Saturday, will help quantify the varying amounts of light pollution, air pollution, and other things that interfere with the view of the night sky in different places.

Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean, a member of the Atlantis shuttle crew, came up with the idea for this star-counting project, and he will be counting the stars from his 200-mile-high perch to compare that view with those gathered by students and other volunteers on the ground.

All of the results, including MacLean's, will be posted immediately on a map, with color-coded dots that will show the differences in visibility. Clicking on any of the dots on the map will bring up a box containing all the details of each observation.

``Anything involving the stars and the cosmos is always very intriguing for students," said education specialist Jon Neubauer of NASA's Johnson Space Center, one of the coordinators of the project.

Although it's aimed primarily at students in the United States and Canada, anyone of any age anywhere in the world is welcome to take part and contribute data to the project by using detailed instructions on the project's Web page. Science teachers can make the project part of their curriculum and get their classes involved in the data collection.

Actually counting all the stars visible in the sky would be nearly impossible, so the project uses a sampling system to allow observers to get an accurate estimate by looking at 10 small, randomly chosen patches of the sky. The idea is to use a small cylinder, such as the tube from a roll of paper towels. You point the tube at a random patch of sky, and count the number of stars visible in the small patch of sky seen through it. Then, using a formula given on the website, you can translate those counts into an estimate of the total number of stars visible from your location.

Neubauer says the idea is for participants to make their own observations before looking at other people's counts, so as not to influence their expectations.

The project is part of NASA's Student Observation Network (son.nasa.gov), which offers a variety of space-related activities for students. ``One of the benefits for NASA is to inspire students to get interested in science and technology and possibly end up working for NASA someday," said Neubauer.

``We hope this will be a spark to get students out looking at the stars," he said.

Detailed instructions are available at: www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/starcount/.