Light pollution: Good results

[StuartJPP]

Local news station going great guns on how streetlights being switched off will cause a crime wave and everyone falling over.

Just like Google Street View would give all the criminals the ability to rob your house via the web If they are worried about people falling over, why don't they issue everyone with a head torch (dual colour of course) from the money they saved on electricity?

[Scosmico]

I tried once but it didn't work. I will try again today.

[earth titan]

I live in Northamptonshire and they have failed to turn off the one that shines in my observatory. I have been trying for over 5 years to sort it out and had meetings with the local lighting department, but to no avail.

Looks like I am left with only two options, build a shroud to shield the dome, or move!

Allegedly, when they move to the new type of lighting in Northants, we will be able to make any concern re location of said columns well in advance.

I spoke with a nice lady at Balfours who assures me plenty of prior notice will be given and my name has gone on a 'list' to be contacted prior to plans being drawn up.

We'll see.

[Venus_is_my_friend]

Local news station going great guns on how streetlights being switched off will cause a crime wave and everyone falling over.

Actually there is an arguement to streetlights shining into gardens increasing crime as it them the abililty to see in your garden without the use of a torch. A torch would be easy to spot in a dark garden. This has actually happened as well, in the local news someone saw someone in a garden and thought it was the owner as the garden was so well alight they figured a thief wouldn't be so brass. Also if people had security lights instead of street lights you would be alerted to movement in the garden.

Also I would bet that a lot of house burglery happens during the day when it is daylight and people are at work, compared to at night when people are a home. That's just a guess, but it makes sense to me as I would rather enter someones house when nobody is home.

[Demonperformer]

I was actually being sarcastic. The point I made in the fb discussion was exactly the point you are making - how when my laptop was pinched, the streetlight behind him kept him in shadow so I could not give the police an intelligent description, but provided him with the light to see what he was doing.

[Venus_is_my_friend]

Thieves can go into room 101 with Streetlights and Clouds.

Also when you say intelligent description do you mean you gave them a stupid one "It could have been a man, I could have been an Alien." haha. Did you get your laptop back?

[Demonperformer]

For all I could have been sure, yes, it could have been an alien or (slightly more likely) a woman! It was just a 'black person-shaped blob'.

No, I didn't get it back, despite it being security marked and giving the police the item number. But (as is always the case with electronic gear) the insurance money bought me a better model for less money, so to that extent it was not too bad a thing. What really annoyed me was that I had been getting some (for me) excellent subs of M31, and I lost them. To add insult to injury, whoever ended up with the laptop probably did not even realise how good they were!!

[laser_jock99]

We have had a local mid night switch off here in Warwick District since December. To be honest it hasn't made a huge difference to LP due us being so close to Coventry, the large number of lighting collumns left on (main roads, town centre & junctions) and other private lighting. Maybe the effect will be better when the whole county joins in?

Local opposition has been fierce though there has been some support for the scheme. I suspect the crime rate has gone down locally or the press would be making a total meal of every incident.

The only real setback was when a drunken lad got killed by a speeding foriegn taxi driver on an unlit stretch of road at 4:00 am one morning. Not sure why that stretch of road was lit in the first place as it is miles from any houses, being between two towns. Still someone got killed and thats bad news all round.

[Stargazer33]

Just received this reply from my local council after they moved the shield that they had already put up and had reduced the light pollution in my garden considerably.

Thank you for your email, please accept my apologies for the delay in replying to you.

Unfortunately, we are not able to alter the shield any further for you as we have received a number of complaints regarding this light, highlighting that this section is now dark due to the shielding. For this reason, we cannot adjust the shield anymore and depending on whether or not we receive further complaints, we may need to remove the shield altogether.

Kindest regards,

Just goes to show how high light pollution is on some councils lists. It took me about 3 months to get the shields installed in the first place and a matter of a couple of weeks for the shields to be altered with the threat of them being removed altogether!

[Dave]

Allegedly, when they move to the new type of lighting in Northants, we will be able to make any concern re location of said columns well in advance.

The "New Lighting" has been installed in the estate next to mine.

They are very white but, unlike the street light I'm trying to get sorted, very little light goes out sideways.

So the light goes down where it's really needed and they definitely seem to be an improvement.

[Stargazer33]

...They are very white but, unlike the street light I'm trying to get sorted, very little light goes out sideways.

So the light goes down where it's really needed and they definitely seem to be an improvement.

I wish our new street lighting was like that! The house behind us which is probably 40m from our house and about 100m from the street light is lit up so bright that you can read a newspaper!

[Venus_is_my_friend]

**UPDATE**

Well as promised here is a photo of the finished light shield.

The woman said there was no light shield available, so the guy had to paint it.

As you can see the light still shines into my garden and the shield is not not good enough to block it all out. BTW I view from the area of the patio that is hidden by the wall on the right of the picture.

I e-mailed back to see if there was anything more the could do, but as there are garages behind my property they can't paint anymore than this. I have estimated that it blocks out around 20%-30% of the light and 80% of the glare when viewing objects in the North West (the camera is pointing West)

I know it's not perfect but I am happy that I have an improvement