While I was at work.....

[DaveS]

.....So were the council, replacing the low-pressure sodium with these

Ignore the foreground lamp, it's been there a couple of years. When it got dark I got 

Not as bright as it looks, the houses look a lot darker than they were. When I get to work I'll have a look through my old photos for some pre LED shots.

[tooth_dr]

These types of lights seem to control the leakage of light much better. Is this potentially a good thing for you or not?

[DaveS]

A bit early to tell, waiting on a clear moonless night ( Yeah, right). TBH London's LP is so all pervasive that it may be hard to tell.

[DaveS]

Not from quite the same spot butt his was just after they put in the LED you can see in the foreground.

You can see how bright the old sodium lamps in the background are

[Alien 13]

The LED lights are usually a big improvement unless you are in direct line of sight of one.

Alan

[Azbec]

19 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

These types of lights seem to control the leakage of light much better. Is this potentially a good thing for you or not?

Our local council replaced an old sodium unit with an LED one a couple of years ago. The LED unit is far worse and has no kind of shade - so it floods all the houses around it (including mine) and the sky with this awful, sharp white light. It actually forced some neighbours to move their bedroom to the back of their house.

A few of us complained to the council and asked for them to install some kind of shade, so that the light only falls on the street; but that clearly fell on deaf ears.

[DaveS]

Fortunately the council (Hillingdon) are cheapskates so have left the old standards, so the lamps are the same height. The only one visible in the garden is from the far end where I don't observe or image from.

I have blackout curtains on my bedroom windows anyway from when the streetlights were sodium.

[DaveS]

8 minutes ago, Azbec said:

Our local council replaced an old sodium unit with an LED one a couple of years ago. The LED unit is far worse and has no kind of shade - so it floods all the houses around it (including mine) and the sky with this awful, sharp white light. It actually forced some neighbours to move their bedroom to the back of their house.

A few of us complained to the council and asked for them to install some kind of shade, so that the light only falls on the street; but that clearly fell on deaf ears.

Get on to your MP,  there are laws against light trespass.

[tooth_dr]

I can see a distant town from my house, that has the led lights installed.  I no longer have that dome of orange, the led lights seem to only illuminate downwards mostly. 

[DaveS]

LEDs *can* be an improvement but they have to be implemented inteligently. They're not a panacea.

I think the council have inadvertently made a good installation.

[Mognet]

I've noticed in my town that the new LED streetlamps on the main roads are definitely less bright than the old sodium lamps that they still have in the side roads. The illumination is about the same even though they are mounted higher. The shielding seems to be much better too.

If the local supermarket had installed them in their car park the same way, instead of just swapping the bulbs, and also turned them off at the same time as the streetlights, then that would be great

[Shibby]

Sadly the white LED light renders LP filters useless. It's difficult to say whether the better direction of the light makes up for this... One of the big advantages of new streetlights, though, is that a lot of them can be more easily controlled remotely and there are a lot of late-night turn-off schemes being put in place by councils.

[DaveS]

Most of my imaging is NB anyway so hopefully not a problem. This is London so can't see them even dimming the lamps, let alone turning any off.

[LukeSkywatcher]

LED street lights are a big improvement over the orange sodium lights. Less light pollution and they are usually installed (or by design) to only cast light directly downwaords with very little over spill. If only people who make insecurity lights for houses did the same thing.

[DaveS]

Had a look last night, after the rain cleared but the sky was, if anything, worse .

I could barely see Albireo, and the bottom two stars of Lyra. Looking at Pegasus, only 3 of the square stars were clearly visible, the third was just glimpsed. This was after taking a chair out into the garden and getting as dark-adapted as I could.

On the last "good" clear night I could clearly see 3 of the stars in Ursa Minor, and glimpse two or three more. Delphinus and Saggita were just visible. Last night, nothing. Only the three brightest stars of UMi were visible.

Overall, the sky looked more like twilight, or if the Moon was coming up, but this was at 9.15pm, well into astro dark, and the Moon was still well below the horizon. Perhaps the wet pavements were reflecting a lot more light up, but I didn't have this problem with the old sodium lamps.

Looks like I'm now NB only, which is a bother (Putting it politely), as I'd hoped to have a go at Deer Lick and Stephen's Quintet (Just to prove that I'm totally barking), and maybe the Leo Triplet for the Galaxy challenge in April. Will have to give it a miss I'm afraid.

 

I'd hoped that the new street lighting would have darkened the skies enough that I wouldn't have to move to the country, but now it's looking more imperative than ever .

[ejp1684]

On 06/10/2017 at 14:28, LukeSkywatcher said:

LED street lights are a big improvement over the orange sodium lights. Less light pollution and they are usually installed (or by design) to only cast light directly downwaords with very little over spill. If only people who make insecurity lights for houses did the same thing.

I agree. Although there are a couple of the new lamps on the road at the front of my house, the skies are noticeably darker from the back. If only they'd replace the sodium lamps on the main  road 100 yards away it would be even better, but not much chance of that. They seem to only change them on the minor roads here.

Eric.

[spillage]

The problem with led lights is that the councils seem to stick in the wrong ones at around 5k rather than using ones around 3.5k which are less white and more suitable.

I do not know why they think they have to use the most highest power one available, there was me thinking councils wanted to save money.

[DaveS]

I think the council are using "cheap 'n' cheerful" LEDs. They say they're spending £52 million to do 27,000 (Round figures) streetlights, or under £2k each. This is including the cost of the lamp-head itself, hire of any equipment, contractors wages etc. Thus I think they're buying the cheapest lamps they can find which are, unfortunately the unfiltered very blue ones. At least they haven't put them any higher, which council lighting depts. have a tendency to do.

[F15Rules]

I moved to rural Lincolnshire in March, partly for better skies. My village is quite small but had some old sodium lights fitted, one of which is about 30m away and cast an awful orange halo right into part of my garden, some of which then reflected off my kitchen windows into the darker areas! 

About a month ago this light was, along with most of the others in the village, replaced with an LED one and I have to say that it is much better..

I'd estimate about 80% better, with black sky above the lamp and most of the light directed downwards.

So I am very lucky, and my skies ( which were already much better than the Midlands) are now darker again..real structure seen in the Milky Way overhead.

But if I stand close to, or underneath, the new lamp, it's blindingly bright, so it's really a lottery as to where the darn things are located, and I do SO sympathise with other amateur astronomers who have some truly awful, ill thought out lighting to contend with.

I just hope that austerity forces more councils to switch off for all of part of the night in the future..

Dave

[DaveS]

I went out again last night, about 10 o/c and I have to say the sky was noticeable darker than on Wednesday, from what I could see through the gaps in the clouds. Back to what it had been, with Delphinus and Saggita just visible. Maybe there was less moisture in the air, or the pavements were now dry, dunno.

Will give it a while before passing judgment, but the sky conditions may be more weather-dependant than before. As if they weren't weather-dependant enough already .

[Paul M]

I think that for visual astronomy the well shielded LED lamps are a huge improvement, or at least the ones at the far end of our street are. Much less glare for road users and the only light going upwards is reflected light. No direct skyward glare.

I wish they'd do the whole town! 

[spillage]

5 minutes ago, Paul M said:

the only light going upwards is reflected light

This is where I get annoyed. If the light is reflecting upwards and causing light pollution then the light is too strong and this is a waste of our council tax money, shows that whoever choose the bulbs had no ideas on lighting..sorry...rant over.