{"id":282,"date":"2023-02-23T14:29:18","date_gmt":"2023-02-23T14:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/?p=282"},"modified":"2023-03-16T16:04:56","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T16:04:56","slug":"inner-city-stargazing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/inner-city-stargazing\/","title":{"rendered":"How to stargaze in the city"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Looking to the skies with augmented astronomy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"512\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-1024x512.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-310\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-1024x512.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-770x385.jpg 770w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-585x293.jpg 585w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-1170x585.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-293x147.jpg 293w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"512\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-1024x512.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-310\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-1024x512.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-770x385.jpg 770w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-585x293.jpg 585w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-1170x585.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing-293x147.jpg 293w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/02\/thumbnail_stargazing.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/noscript><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Photo credit: Matthaus Bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s an overcast evening in Cardiff but the sky is bright. Light pollution from the city reflects off the clouds \u2013 it\u2019s 9pm but feels like 6am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of Cardiff scores a seven on the Bortle scale \u2013 a measure of brightness in the night sky. \u2018Excellent dark sky\u2019 accounts for a perfect ten. Whereas \u2018inner city sky\u2019 scores on the bottom of the scale.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cardiff\u2019s score is labelled \u2018suburban\/urban transition\u2019 \u2013 one of only two places in Wales with a score so high. The other is the sky above Port Talbot steelworks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tonight it\u2019s hard to find the moon, let alone any stars. Being surrounded by student nightlife,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m more likely to wish upon a rogue firework than a star.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Getting the gear<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I looked for starter telescopes \u2013 the cheapest one was \u00a3199, with other beginner kits reaching stratospheric prices of \u00a33000.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apart from a few close up clouds, light pollution from the city would prevent me from seeing much at all with telescopes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I browsed Google\u2019s play store \u2013 three of the top 10 free educational apps are stargazing apps; Stellarium Mobile, Star Tracker and Star Walk 2. I settled on the highest rated app, Stellarium Mobile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The apps use augmented reality (AR) to bridge the gap between physical and digital worlds, utilising your phone\u2019s location and gyroscope \u2013 a device used to maintain a reference of direction to map the night sky above.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On opening the app, a message appeared telling me to point my device up. So, I did. Then I grinned in the same way you do when you look at a puppet and believe it\u2019s alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I span my phone around, taking in the stars and planets. Rotating my phone instead of finger-scrolling was enough to immerse me in the solar system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hovered over constellations \u2013 the stars linked with lines and illustrations over them. I tapped a constellation and a Wikipedia excerpt displayed, chronicling its history. Who knew Orion had a star system called Hatysa between his thighs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The verdict<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>After putting my phone away my mind was clear, and I felt calm. It could have been the newness of the experience, but the app had a positive effect on my mood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It felt best when I could feel the outside on my skin \u2013 helping me forget I was hanging out of my window pointing my phone at the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stellarium was no replacement for being outside with a flask of tea and good company, but it felt like a healthy way to spend time on your phone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GORP try stargazing in a light-polluted city using an app as a way of escaping everyday life in search of constellations <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":924,"featured_media":310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,43,44,42],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-tos","tag-app","tag-city","tag-pollution","tag-stars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":600,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions\/600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}