led street lights are better for me

[toxic]

i had 3 sodium street lights around my back garden 2 yellow and 1 white now all have bean changed to LED 2 warm white and 1 day white but i have noticed now that my garden is almost pitch black and don't get the horrible orange haze anymore and i can even see very faintly the galaxy arm.

picture 1 is from 9th september 2016 and sodium street lights.

picture 2 is from 3rd August 2017 with led street lights.

both images are 600 second HA same scope and camera 200pds and atik 383l and both are unprocessed just converted to jpeg for posting.

looks like i am gona get some faint stuff now may even get the tidal tail in the Leo cluster 

 

[Littleguy80]

Nice comparison. I've still got the sodium lights on my street but have noticed some of the LED street lights appearing in the area. I hope they lead to dark skies for me too

[Alien 13]

My LED streetlight are too good, cant see my feet when I step outside in the back garden 

Alan

[toxic]

27 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

My LED streetlight are too good, cant see my feet when I step outside in the back garden 

Alan

i know what you mean i haven't needed a torch in the garden for years and years lol its a consolation when tripping over something 

[Pig]

I too think the LED's have made a huge difference, hopefully as a long term goal they will fit movement sensors to them ?

[Charic]

My concern is the height of some of the LEDs being installed, they tower over the originals, and they are brighter beneath their heads, but along the main streets, there is a definite difference to the horizontal light levels, and hopefully for the better. 

I live on a small estate, one of the first arrivals, with new properties built  in the last 20 Years, plus  the forrest has grown  too tall. Surprisingly though, only three gardens away, they are inky black, whereas my garden is bathed in orange.
If the street lights on this little estate are not too tall, it may  prove for a better  outlook. The problem here is 'secure by design' the existing lights illuminate everything, I do remember the early Years, felt like 'Jackson' walking down the street, as all the PIR detectors reacted to any one passing, the kids used to 'race the lights?'

[DaveS]

Hillingdon have started replacing the sodium lamps with LED, done a few on the roundabout at the bottom of my street, but not the street itself yet.

TBH, London's LP is so all-pervasive that it would need the whole city to go over to "good" LEDs to make a difference.

[Dinglem]

They've started turning the sodium lights off at the side and back of me at midnight, unfortunately I have to get up at 06.00 to go to work

[Waldemar]

5 minutes ago, Dinglem said:

They've started turning the sodium lights off at the side and back of me at midnight, unfortunately I have to get up at 06.00 to go to work

In the weekends too? 2 out of 7 is not so bad... better than nothing at all!

[Dinglem]

1 hour ago, Waldemar said:

In the weekends too? 2 out of 7 is not so bad... better than nothing at all!

That's true just need the weather fairies to synchronise the clear skys with Friday and Saturday nights and I'll be a happy chappy

[toxic]

16 minutes ago, Dinglem said:

That's true just need the weather fairies to synchronise the clear skys with Friday and Saturday nights and I'll be a happy chappy

the trouble with that is the weather fairies live on the moon and they can only clear the clouds with a full moon 

 

[Waldemar]

Have some nice red wine ready for them, that will bring them in the right mood 

[toxic]

you can have the led lights shielded it works to some degree but i had to shield the street light over my observatory and that is easy i will put a photo up of the shield .

 

[Dinglem]

Yes I have but it's all mine

 

[HunterHarling]

I thought sodium vapor can be filtered out and led can't?

Fortunately I don't have any street lights near me however I am still in the orange-yellow zone.

[Adam J]

27 minutes ago, HunterHarling said:

I thought sodium vapor can be filtered out and led can't?

Fortunately I don't have any street lights near me however I am still in the orange-yellow zone.

This is true for the LEDs that had the cold blue tint to them. Less so for the warmer tone. However, I love on a hill and when i look down at the road at the bottom of the hill i can see a line of sodium lights running from left to right. They abruptly stop, but if you drive down the hill and along the road you see that there are LED lights after the end of the row of sodium lights and they continue into the distance.....thing is from the top of the hill you would not know they existed but from street level then are very bright. SO filterable or not there is allot less going straight up. Of course narrow band should still be very effective.

[Mr Spock]

All our sodium lights have been replaced by LEDs. While it's true my back garden is dark, I can't say the same for the sky. The sky is grey rather then black and any chance of DSO is gone Planets only now.

[SonnyE]

That is quite a difference, Chris.

I still have a hugely varying difference around me from HPS, LPS, and who-know-what lights from others.

So I've found the darkest little area in my back yard (garden) that affords me the best views I can work with.

Then try to filter out the light pollution, and work for my best. I don't get away a lot, and prefer to work from home for my imaging.

It's close to the most comfortable bed I know of, and all my toys if I want to modify something.

But the only place I can control the type lighting I have around me is right here. 

[toxic]

20 hours ago, SonnyE said:

That is quite a difference, Chris.

I still have a hugely varying difference around me from HPS, LPS, and who-know-what lights from others.

So I've found the darkest little area in my back yard (garden) that affords me the best views I can work with.

Then try to filter out the light pollution, and work for my best. I don't get away a lot, and prefer to work from home for my imaging.

It's close to the most comfortable bed I know of, and all my toys if I want to modify something.

But the only place I can control the type lighting I have around me is right here. 

i have only bean to a dark site once and dint have a camera with me lol but that is what got me started but as for LP i have a street light right above my shedservatory and i had terrible LP and gradient from it and the others street lights around the garden if i gad known what a problem they would have been i dont think i would have started  but then i am a gluten for punishment so i probably would have still gave it a go lol.

[Charic]

Something not quite right tonight when I ventured outside and what's that  strange light through the tree, not the normal orange glare from the sodiums?

 

W H O O P E E E E E E!!!!!!!!!

What a difference!  its almost dark in my garden, well I'd say initially half as dark again  from what I'm used too, but will investigate a bit more when the neighbours lights are out and everyones snoring.

Things are  already looking up for this years session, however once the tree foliage has fallen, it may not be as good, but the fact there's no sodium glow  reflecting off the buildings is amazing, in-fact it had crossed my mind that some lights had actually blown, but no, sometime this week, they have changed the heads from sodium to LED, and my fear of them being taller here, with a greater spread of light  was not as bad as I had feared. 

Obviously I'll  need to go out and get my eyes accustomed, but theres some excitement building already ?

[Alien 13]

8 minutes ago, Charic said:

Something not quite right tonight when I ventured outside and what's that  strange light through the tree, not the normal orange glare from the sodiums?

 

W H O O P E E E E E E!!!!!!!!!

What a difference!  its almost dark in my garden, well I'd say initially half as dark again  from what I'm used too, but will investigate a bit more when the neighbours lights are out and everyones snoring.

Things are  already looking up for this years session, however once the tree foliage has fallen, it may not be as good, but the fact there's no sodium glow  reflecting off the buildings is amazing, in-fact it had crossed my mind that some lights had actually blown, but no, sometime this week, they have changed the heads from sodium to LED, and my fear of them being taller here, with a greater spread of light  was not as bad as I had feared. 

Obviously I'll  need to go out and get my eyes accustomed, but theres some excitement building already ?

I had a similar experience, I live 2 miles from a city center in a built up area but my garden is so dark that I have to take a torch with me when I let the cat out, cant see a thing.

Alan

[Charic]

The neighbour has left their landing light on,  but  I've never known that light to be so bright? however,  its probably due to the darker  surroundings?
I'll still need to adjust too the new conditions and see how it fares once the leaves drop, but  M31 is looking better already from my temporary fence panel hide, and my old eyes can just make it out with averted vision here tonight.

Unfortunately the scope hasn't cooled effectively yet, so a star test is proving awkward, but my stars do look sharp.
I did a quick Barlowed laser  check and it 'looked' ok, but I find that actually moving the main collimation screws is beneficial to my calibration, physically seeing the shadow move? 

There's not much time before the Moon comes over the tree line, so I'm back out for a short while see if anything else comes into view.

[Charic]

M81, M82 and M31 much clearer than previous observations, now the orange glare has gone, but not something I can image (yet) and the Moon has just appeared ( simple snapshot, iPhone 6s ) though M51 and M101 still eludes me from my garden, maybe next time without the Moon, but its about time I retired for the night.
There's plenty more nights, and better, now that my environment has changed somewhat.

 

Its a shame close-ups  ( x375 )don't  look as sharp as they do in the eyepiece, taken around 0300 Hrs

Now its time for bed!

[Dave Lloyd]

Our back garden is pretty dark anyway but the council replacing all local sodiums with leds has led to a step change in sky quality. Looking out of upstairs windows shows just how dark the area has become. 

[Charic]

17 hours ago, Charic said:

Unfortunately the scope hasn't cooled effectively yet, so a star test is proving awkward, but my stars do look sharp

Right at the end of my session I remembered to do a star test using my 3.2mm and it turns out that the scope was collimated to as good as it can get.