Light pollution, some good news for a change

[drmillrace]

I came home from a few days holiday yesterday to discover that the Council have replaced the horrible old fashioned light scattering streetlights in my street wih modern shielded units which only throw the light downwards. What's more they seem to be doing the whole town. Nice to see a council doing their bit to reduce LP.

[Telrad]

Good stuff. I wish the local council would do the same thing here

[rosasafes]

I wish to join you..

[acey]

I came home from a few days holiday yesterday to discover that the Council have replaced the horrible old fashioned light scattering streetlights in my street wih modern shielded units which only throw the light downwards. What's more they seem to be doing the whole town. Nice to see a council doing their bit to reduce LP.

Maybe. Although cut-off fixtures reduce light that would be seen directly outside the town, there's evidence that they actually lead to increased skyglow, because there needs to be more of them, and they burn more brightly, resulting in more light being reflected from the ground up into the sky. The research is in this paper:

http://lrt.sagepub.com/content/40/4/307.full.pdf

I've seen it for myself: my town switched to new cut-off fixtures, and the skyglow seen from dark sites outside the town is now much brighter. Within the town it makes no difference at all.

[Carbon Brush]

I second Acey's concerns.

Councils seem to think that if they put in a new more efficient light of the same power they have done well. The idea of smaller bulbs for the same light, or different lampost spacing are too advanced.

Then of course old sodium lights are a doddle to filter out. Newer, broad bandwidth fittings are difficult to impossible to work with.

Sorry to sound so negative. But that has been my experience.

The only real solutions are dimming and turn off.

But good luck with your sky when the autumn comes around.