Countryside campaigners and astronomers are together asking people to count stars in the sky this Christmas – to help combat the rapidly spreading light pollution blotting out our view of the night time heavens. [1]

Our easy-to-do star count, which starts tonight (Wednesday) and runs through to Christmas Eve, comes amid a blaze of festive luminescence. [2]

Find out about the star count at www.britastro.org/starcount or www.cpre.org.uk

CPRE [3] and the British Astronomical Association’s Campaign for Dark Skies [4] are warning that most of today’s children will never see the magnificent sight of the Milky Way – our own galaxy – spread across the sky unless we halt the growth in badly directed, inefficient outdoor lighting. [5]

It will vanish in a garish pink-orange glow covering most of the country.

We want people to count the number of stars they can see within the easy-to-find constellation of Orion between 8pm and midnight, then tell us the number – online or by post – and where they were when they did their count. [6]

It will take only a few minutes and get you outside for a breath of fresh air. You could do it on your way to a Midnight Service.

In an area suffering severe light pollution, someone might see only two or three stars within Orion on a clear night. In a pristine night sky, far from outdoor lights, they may see dozens. [7]

We hope enough people will take part to help build up data on light pollution [8] – and if the count is a success we will repeat it in future years, looking out for trends. The exercise will also raise awareness about the issue. Huge quantities of electricity are wasted and greenhouse gas emissions are boosted while the night skies are being despoiled by careless, unnecessary outdoor light.

CPRE and the Campaign for Dark Skies are jointly campaigning for local and central Government, businesses and people everywhere to cut down on light pollution. In a nutshell, we want everyone to take care that if outdoor lights are needed, they direct their rays efficiently downwards rather than spilling light sideways and upwards, and that places are not overlit.

Three years ago the Government said it would produce guidance for local council planners on how they could help tackle light pollution through local planning policies and decisions. As of now, it has still not published a draft for consultation. [9]

CPRE dark skies campaigner Emma Marrington said: ‘It would be a huge boost to our campaign if thousands of people spent a few moments counting stars and telling us how many they saw.'

Bob Mizon, the Campaign for Dark Skies' Co-ordinator, said: 'The light from distant stars and galaxies takes hundreds, thousands, even millions of years to reach our eyes. What a tragedy to lose it on the last millisecond of its journey!'

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NOTES FOR EDITORS

1.  CPRE’s Night Blight! campaign, launched in 2003, used data on night time light gathered by US military weather satellites to demonstrate that there had been a rapid increase in light pollution across the UK between 1990 and 2000.

2.  We are not Christmas lights killjoys and do not advocate any ban on them. No one should complain about two or three weeks of outdoor light decorations around Christmas, to bring some seasonal cheer to suburbs and towns centres at the darkest time of year. But couldn’t the lights be switched off at, say, 11 pm – to save a bit on carbon emissions and let the stars shine through? And do some of the displays have to be quite so gigantic and garish?  There is, of course, another Christmas connection with astronomy and the night sky. Theories abound about the Star of Bethlehem, mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew. Explanations include a triple close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 7 BC; a nova (an exploding star); and a comet in 5 BC. However, there is a school of thought which sees the 'star' as an invention symbolic of greatness, in the same manner as we now speak of 'star status' for well known people.

3.  CPRE, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, is a charity which promotes the beauty, tranquillity and diversity of rural England. We advocate positive solutions for the long-term future of the countryside. Founded in 1926, we have 60,000 supporters and a branch in every county. President: Sir Max Hastings. Patron: Her Majesty The Queen.

4.  The British Astronomical Association represents thousands of amateur astronomers in the UK and has long been running a Campaign for Dark Skies (CfDS).

5. Scientists have estimated that more than half the UK population will never see the Milky Way - our own galaxy - in the night sky around their homes because electric light is blotting it out. See The First World Atlas of the Artificial Night Sky Brightness, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2001.

6.  Full details are on the British Astronomical Association / Campaign for Dark Skies website at www.britastro.org/starcount. There is also a link from CPRE’s home page at www.cpre.org.uk. Four bright stars mark out a roughly rectangular shape around the constellation of Orion, in the southern night sky – it is one of the easiest constellation’s to find. We are asking people to tell us the number of stars they see within these four ‘corner’ stars. We’ve chosen five days when the moon is small. If people can’t do their count because of cloudy skies between 8 pm and midnight on those nights, they have the chance to try again between January 14 and 21 – when once again the moon is small.

7.  The star count web page has a link to a brief slideshow demonstrating this.

8.  Philip's Dark Skies Map of the UK, drawn up with the CfDS, maps light pollution.

9.   Both CPRE’s and the Campaign for Dark Skies’ websites set out what we want local and national Government, business and the public to do in order to tackle spreading light pollution. The Government said it would produce guidance on light pollution and planning in its December 2003 response to a report on light pollution by the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology published earlier that year.