Light Pollution: I'm a happy frood ;)

[uhb1966]

Thought i'd share somethingpositive

Last week, i saw new LED lighting being fitted in our town. I was mad about it, thinking "oh no-now those #'+*! are making the light pollution even worse with that!"

But- although they don't look like it, the new lights are keeping the photons much more on the street, where they belong. And i have at least a dozen of them within 100 yards.

So, not everything keeps getting worse! What are Your experience with new vs old street lighting?

Best, Ulrich

[Gina]

Our village is expanding complete with street lights but the problem seems to more the towns within a 5-10 mile radius.  I'm half a mile from the village.

[Dazzyt66]

My experience with LED has been good to date. In my old village they replaced the sodium with LED and it made an immediate improvement to the general darkness because of the light being directed downwards more effectively. That said, I didn’t have any in really close proximity to my back garden (as we backed on to a railway track).

We’ve just moved to a new estate, closer to town, but all with LED. Again, nothing overlooking my garden directly atm. However, several new houses have gone up around us where (in)security lights have been fitted so time will tell if I’m affected by those during the nights...

[DaveS]

My local council, Hillingdon, has been replacing all the street lights with LEDs. On a good dry transparent night it's slightly darker, by perhaps 1/4 mag. However, all it needs is for the air to be less than transparent, or there to be wet pavements and the sky gets worse, as the blue light then gets reflected up and scatters worse than the old LP Na that we had. OTOH, I'm on the boundary of another borough, Harrow, that is still mostly HP Na, so that might make the difference less. And, of course, London's LP is so all-pervading that it will swamp any local improvements.

[DAVE AMENDALL]

I must agree,if conditions are good,The LED Lights are better than the old sodium lanterns. At the moment we are in the transition period of half sodium and half LED in a semi urban area of Nottinghamshire and the skies here are still good. Everywhere it seems new houses are being built, which means more street lights not to mention the burglers best friend the security lights.  Dave 

[Demonperformer]

When we were having them fitted I did some tests with the SQM. It is now over 1/2 magnitude better. More than that, it is much better directed and so can get away with a shorter dew shield - always been more important as a light shield than a dew shield.

[Alien 13]

I can easily see the Milky way and I am just a mile from a big city center, love those LED lights.

Alan

[Stub Mandrel]

Stayed with my brother in Dunblane which has LED lights. Majorly darker skies than I have here.