A group of about 25 members of the Institute of Geography met on the evening of January 20 for a stargazing experience. Despite the cold weather, about 25 people joined the event. Prof. Dr. Christopher Kyba brought an "enhanced vision telescope" (eVscope) which we used to observe several star clusters and galaxies. Participants were able to view the results of our observations immediately on their smartphone. This type of telescope is used by citizen scientists around the world within a group called the Unihedron Network. Last year 15,000 astronomical observations were made by hundreds of citizen scientists.

Starting in February, Prof. Kyba will host an Erasmus student who is using data from such telescopes during her Masters thesis. She will develop a methodology to extract sky brightness and extinction (a measure of air pollution) as a side product of the astronomical observations made by the citizen scientists.

Prof. Kyba plans to hold a similar evening event again this year in the fall, when it will hopefully be much warmer.