This is my latest blog, one for astronomy, which is one of my interests, and nature and environmental subjects as well, including nature hikes and birding.
Yesterday was a good day at the Richmond Astronomical Society. We saw the President of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Mr. Lockman, give a speech on radio telescopes at Greenbank Observatory in West Virginia.
The highlight of the meeting was hearing Mary Kathryne Dickinson, a high school student, make a presentationon her project to measure light pollution in the Richmond, Virginia area. The project has some interesting features, such as a formula to measure sky brightness, some graphs, and a map of the United States and Canada showing where the light-polluted areas are. This talk reminds me of another one given by a high school student in 2003, by Jennifer Barlow, on her effort to get Americans to turn off their lights for two hours.
One of these two women is studying the problem of light pollution, and the other is trying to do something about it. Combined together, sure something will be done about our vanishing skies. But we all need to help; it is not going to go away on the efforts of two high school girls alone.
2005/06/14
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