Earth Hour In Saskatoon

The theme this year at the Centre Mall in Saskatoon for Earth Hour is "Go Celestial". Saturday, March 27, 8:30-9:30pm at the entrance by Tony Tomas is the place to be during Earth Hour. Here is a link to the Earth Hour Canada site.

Earth Hour was started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when over 2 million homes turned off their lights for one hour to bring awareness to climate change. In 2008, over 50 million people in 35 countries participated and in 2009, more than 88 countries took part. 2010 is sure to be even bigger.

Last year in Saskatoon, there was a large line-up of people at the Centre Mall, so this year only promises to be bigger (weather providing of course). I plan on being there for this event, as does Bob of Blackholes and Astrostuff. The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Saskatoon Centre will be setup as well with telescopes set up. But Bob cautions everyone to maybe be there about 30 mins ahead of time to setup your scopes before viewing starts.

The first link below is to the page on the mall site about the event. It's the second from the bottom. The last link is the flyer the mall has put together for this event.

Centre Mall events

Centre Mall flyer

Hope to see you out

Light Pollution

So, I've noticed lately, that there seems to be an ever-increasing amount of light pollution over Saskatoon. This is especially evident in the Stonegate area where all the new businesses are. They seem to be using a lot of white lights instead of amber ones, thus making for a really bright glow above that area. I think the city should be making a committment to decrease the amount of light pollution by changing to more energy efficient lights, ensuring they are pointing down better than the current ones, and so on.

I'm not sure the exact source for the following photo. I believe that NASA has done these types of satellite images and National Geographic has done stories on this topic as well. The planet is under seige from an increasing amount of light pollution. It definitely makes observing the stars more difficult.