Kent LED street light conversion - before and after

[sharkmelley]

The whole of the Kent County Council area is having street lights replaced by the LED variety over the next year.  My road was one of the first to be converted - the work was done yesterday.

Here's a picture of the old sodium light:

And here's the LED replacement, manufactured by Phosco:

 

Here's the street view before and after.  I used exactly the same manual settings (ISO 800  F/4.5  5sec) and daylight white balance for both images:

 

I have to say I am very pleasantly surprised.  The light appears to be very well directed (see the areas of shadow on the hedges for example) and approximately the same overall brightness.  I have 3 years worth of Sky Quality Meter readings so it will be interesting to see if any change is apparent as the whole area is converted.

It looks as if the luminaire might be this one:  http://www.cuphosco.com/luminaires-p852-led   It's described as "dark sky friendly" in their brochure.

 

Mark

 

 

 

Edited March 15, 2016 by sharkmelley

[Grotemobile]

Very interesting. The light spread is were it should

be now. On the ground. 

 

Steve.

[knobby]

Looks really promising 

[bigrich]

Wow, that's a big difference 

[PeterCPC]

They look much better than the LEDs that they used around here.

Peter

[Mick J]

They look good, the tall leafless trees above the far lamp cannot be seen in the led picture,  like the hedges .

[laudropb]

These look very good. Better than the ones installed here.

[Owmuchonomy]

Very interesting Mark. I assume the LED is broad spectrum but if it is well directed then maybe not an issue?

[Gina]

 They look very good   Better in so many ways

[spaceman_spiff]

The council started replacing the sodium lights on my street last year. For some reason they never finished to other end of the street .

I like the new lights, the pic below was taken at a level just above the height of the lights. The sodium lights spill light out at that level (and probably at higher angles) whereas the LED lights keep the light beam directed strictly downwards, which is great . 

[johnrt]

Interesting, I await the conversion in Tropical Sevenoaks to see what difference it makes here, I'm quite hopeful as I have no lamps near my house to shine directly on my kit, but I'm hoping for an overall reduction in sky glow.

Edited March 16, 2016 by johnrt

[LukeSkywatcher]

New lights look great. Well done to KCC.

[happy-kat]

That light head looks very good in that it cannot spill forward, backwards or sideways.

Unlike the leds I have they spill in all directions.

[Davey-T]

Not sure if they'll make mine better or worse, got three orange ones shining directly into the garden ATM and a couple more peering through the trees, hope it doesn't end up like Match of the Day.

Dave

[StuartJPP]

On 15/03/2016 at 20:04, sharkmelley said:

It looks as if the luminaire might be this one:  http://www.cuphosco.com/luminaires-p852-led   It's described as "dark sky friendly" in their brochure.

Mark

I can't understand why all new lights aren't "dark sky friendly". It isn't something that is particularly difficult to achieve...

They certainly look better then the old ones, certainly more directional.

[sharkmelley]

8 hours ago, StuartJPP said:

I can't understand why all new lights aren't "dark sky friendly". It isn't something that is particularly difficult to achieve...

 

I totally agree.  It should be mandatory for all new and replacement street lights.

[Dave In Vermont]

Looks to be a very good configuration - good job!

You know - I'd suggest speaking with the IDSA, and offer them a set of your photos. They might use them to show people a good conversion. Here's their link:

http://darksky.org/

Very nice indeed -

Dave

[SteveNickolls]

Thanks for posting. It will be interesting indeed to see what future sqm values you record.

Cheers,

Steve

[baldeliftman]

They look more dark sky friendly , could just do with dark sky friendly neighbours now .

[Linda]

7 minutes ago, baldeliftman said:

They look more dark sky friendly , could just do with dark sky friendly neighbours now .

Yeh, me too. I have started to use blankets that I lay out over the balcony fence to block out front door lights from below. And I hand up a dark plastic sheet on the side of another neighbour. It improves a lot, even though I don't get all the light away.

[baldeliftman]

My neighbours insist on have 5 lights on all night I think you could see it from space, I put up a six foot fence but it was still to low so I made some curtains out of black plastic,it is suspended by strong fencing wire two foot above the fence, I just close the curtains when its a clear night blocking out the lights and open them when I have finished.  

[sharkmelley]

Ashford (Kent), near where I live, might prove to be an interesting case study since all streetlights will be converted to LED.  The North Downs (Downs are hills!) afford a great view towards Ashford.  Currently the view looks like these two images taken on different nights under different conditions - the first image taken in hazy conditions and the second taken with good visibility:

All residential areas in Ashford will be converted to LED between March and July 2016.  The town centre and main routes will be converted at a later date - well into 2017.  My intention is to take regular photos to monitor progress and hopefully to assess whether or not LED street lights are beneficial to astronomy.

Mark

[happy-kat]

Would be good to take a 11pm and 2am to see how much if any light turning off occurs.

[Davey-T]

Are they still planning on switching them off at night in some areas ? if not then I'll be worse off.

Some random lights have been changed to LEDs around here, presumably when the orange ones die, but they are the same design as the orange ones and shine all over the sky, looks like they've just fitted LED  bulbs in the old lights 

Dave

[Gina]

Oh dear, that's not good   Very wasteful too!