NEW DELHI: When city lights go off, the lamps in the sky come on. Astronomy associations, hoping that Saturday's Earth Hour would significantly reduce light pollution in Delhi, are planning public sky watch programmes in the heart of the city during the event.
The Amateur Astronomers Association Delhi will set up telescopes at India Gate on Saturday evening for the public to view celestial wonders such as planet Saturn. They will also raise awareness about minimizing light pollution in the city so that Delhiites get a chance to appreciate the night sky.
Earth Hour is an annual international event started in 2007 by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) that urges households and businesses across the world to switch off their non-essential lights and gadgets for an hour to raise awareness about climate change. Delhi will observe Earth Hour from 8.30pm on Saturday.
"We will have four-five telescopes and our 'big wide eyes' - the biggest pair of binoculars in India - for the sky watch from 7pm to 10pm. We held the programme last year as well. Though the drop in light pollution isn't major because the streetlights are still on, we use the occasion to urge people not to add to the light pollution in the city," said Raghu Kalra, secretary of the Amateur Astronomers Association Delhi.
Volunteers from Astronomica, another amateur astronomy society affiliated to the science popularization body, SPACE, will also be out in force at India Gate lawns, encouraging people to count stars before and during the Earth Hour to highlight the effect light pollution has on night sky visibility.
Astronomica's exercise is part of a world wide study called Globe at Night where people across the globe look at the same constellation in the sky and count the stars visible from their locations. The number of visible stars gives the extent of local light pollution.
"Last year, this study showed that light pollution in Delhi had worsened by 5% in a year. As lights are turned off during Earth Hour, it is a great time to see how many more stars you can see in the same constellation before and after the blackout hour," a release from Astronomica said.
On Saturday, Astronomica volunteers would be looking at the Leo constellation which has 45 stars. "Usually from Delhi, we can see just three to five," said Mila Mitra, scientific officer at SPACE.
