Earth Hour 2008 - In Gove NT

We held our Earth Hour Observing night last night (29th March) and it was well attended by members of the public here in Gove NT, with at least 50 stargazers
turning up for the evening.
For many of these people it was the first time to an Astronomy night.
The biggest benefits are:
* I have realized we can do public observing nights on our largest oval for the town.
* Awareness has been raised that earth hour is now a global event
* Local People have realized that Individuals can make a difference.
For an observing night in town it just needs 1 or 2 sets of lights
switched off (not hard to do)and we can have an observing night that is easily accessible to the public.
I am sure the countdown has begun to next years Earth Hour already & we can all
all do something to make every hour "Earth Hour"
The Photo above shows our scopes set up for our "Earth Hour" observing night on Hindle oval Nhulunbuy NT.

I have published a detailed article on Ezine articles on this subject to show how we can all carry the success of earth hour into the future, and how this benifits your astronomy experience.
http://EzineArticles.com/?id=1077889

Earth Hour 2008 - Lights Out

In a huge expansion of the Earth Hour event hosted by Sydney last year, the WWF has promoted the event around the world.
As of tonight there are over 235,000 Individuals and 15,000 business registered to be involved.
There has been some comment that this is a token effort. However, when you take into account the number of people involved and if each person saves just .5 of a Kilo Watt hour (Kwh) that is over 100 Megawatt/hours and assuming that a business will save this amount again, we are talking about the output of a medium sized power station for 1 hr.
More importantly, if this becomes a habit, then the savings become signifigant.

From an Astronomy point of view, it is a huge opportunity to make people aware of just how much difference it makes, turning off unnecessary outdoor lighting.

So make sure you make the effort, register at http://www.earthhour.org/sign-up

GAA will be holding an observing night here in Gove on Sat at 8pm on Hindle Oval.

This is how it happened last year: