night sight Archives - How to Kill an Hour

We recently attended a one off urban astrophotography event hosted by Google. All to highlight Google Pixel 4 Astrophotography! We headed up to The Shard and headed out to “The View” and took some incredible shots. The iconic London building even shut off all of the lights for us! They turned off the lights for one hour to allow us to all get closer to the stars and capture the constellations.

Google partnered with the Royal Observatory Greenwich (ROG) for the event, which was very impressive! Astronomer Tom Kerss stopped by to talk about the cosmos and the history of astrophotography. With Google Pixel 4’s Night Sight, a brand new feature which allows us to see into space and capture the Milky Way. Consequently bringing astrophotography to everyone!

In London

New research shows that over a quarter of Londoners (26.7%) said they lived in a city where they can’t see the stars but wish they could! The percentage was higher than any other city in the UK!

Google worked alongside a fantastic team of social experts to look at 3o,000 UK instagram posts. Of which were related to things stars. For example the #NightSky hashtag. Therefore they were able to find out which of the most popular images were from what parts of the capital. As a result Google were able to identify which where the top 10 London locations for Night Sky photography!

Top 10 most popular Night Sky locations in London:

Tower Bridge
The Shard
The London Eye
The Royal Observatory Greenwich
South Bank
St Paul’s Cathedral
London Bridge
Sky Garden
The 02 Greenwich
Millennium Bridge

So where have you been and are you going to take a look at the night sky tonight?

“Our research has shown that over 10% of Londoners can’t remember the last time they looked at the night sky. We want to inspire people to spend more time looking up at the stars. With enhanced Night Sight on the new Pixel 4, anyone can take incredible pictures of the galaxy – and where better to demonstrate this than in the UK’s tallest building, The Shard.” – Nick Clark, Product Manager for Google Pixel 4

“With so many people living in urban areas it may seem like our connection to the night sky is lost, but even in the glow of London lights the brightest stars, planets and the Moon can still be seen with the naked eye. These days we take photos of everything and it’s incredible that we can now capture the stars using just the smartphone technology in our pockets.” – Tom Kerss, Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich