MOBIS, COS4CLOUD and two apps powered the event
Local businesses, city council and residents were encouraged to turn off their lights in Leiden (the Netherlands) between 22:00 and 23:30 on the 25th of September in order to reconnect with the night sky and once again see constellations such as Cassiopea and stars such as Vega with the naked eye in the city famed for the oldest still existing University Observatory in the world. The initiative – called ‘Seeing Stars Leiden‘ – was conceived by artist Daan Roosegaarde, and UNESCO, and organised by the City of Leiden, Leiden University and other partners as part of the ongoing European City of Science Leiden2022.
During the event, residents and visitors to the city took light pollution measurements intending to compare the light on a naturally dark sky and an artificial light sky and be aware of the city’s light pollution. ‘Loss of the night’ and ‘Dark Sky Meter‘, two citizen science apps for Android and Apple systems, respectively, and developed by Pocket Science, were the chosen apps to collect light measurements.
These two apps were connected to MOBIS back-end, a service to create integrative citizen science apps developed in the Cos4Cloud framework. “We connected the apps to MOBIS to process the light measurements data and showcase it with a map service in real time”, clarifies Norbert Schmidt, Pocket Science CEO and MOBIS developer in Cos4Cloud.