Street Light Saga

[Stub Mandrel]

A year ago or more I posted an image showing the terrible sodium streetlight in front of our house (about 50m away but really bright), so bright it made the trees behind our house glow greeny-yellow.

The road is an A-road and the lights were switched off for renewal all winter. Much darker skies but the cloudiest winter since an asteroid took out the dinosaurs.

Tonight the dogs started barking at nothing, and to my horror I saw the lights were back on. This was, however, an inevitable event i had anticipated for months.

The good news? Two parts: First, it's low pressure sodium, so the cheap light pollution filter that made a difference to my imaging a year ago will still work. Secondly, they have used  decent luminaires, although I can still see the light from the back garden its really doesn't appear to light anything up - even the front garden looks darker now than the back garden used to be.

I may not have benefited much from a winter without streetlighting, it looks like things in the future won't be too bad. If only the industrial properties to the north east and south west could tame their lights!

[RichLD]

Glad that it's not all bad Neil. We've recently had LED street lighting installed which I have to say isn't that bad. I could only manage NB from my back garden even with the sodium lights due to excessive LP so the difference the LED lights make to my imaging is minimal. 

Sorry you didn't get clear skies when the lights were out, this winter was indeed a shocker! AP has to be one of the most frustrating hobbies in existence