Count your lucky stars

You'd be counting your lucky stars all right to find a starry starry night these days - or nights certainly if you live anywhere even faintly urban.

The truth is the dark and swirling palate of the night sky - the Cosmos in all its glory has been all but obscured by the glare of lesser lights down here on Earth.

Look up at the night sky - and as you crane your neck to the heavens - the chances are you'll see nothing except maybe the Moon.

Here in the UK, for example, the Campaign for Rural England, has been running an annual star survey - asking people to count - on a cloudless night - the number of stars they can see in the constellation of Orion. And this year people said they could see fewer than ever.

Martin Morgan-Taylor is a light pollution expert at De Montfort University in the English Midlands. I asked him how many stars you SHOULD be able to count in Orion