LED streetlights are coming to Portsmouth

[Pompey Monkey]

Here is the "Equality Impact Assessement" paper produced by PCC:

https://democracy.portsmouth.gov.uk/documents/s15084/Street Lighting Appendix - Equalities Impact Assessment.pdf

The key point for us are:

1. The LEDs are 4000K
2. Dimming and switching off for part of the night has been trialed, too!

 

[Jonk]

Thanks for sharing... has anything been done where you are?

[DAVE AMENDALL]

I suppose NCC will be putting up the council tax to clear the debts. The council tax is so high here that RBC are making a nice profit and the LED street lights are on all night............Dave

[Pompey Monkey]

23 hours ago, Jonk said:

Thanks for sharing... has anything been done where you are?

Not yet. I'm in Portchester (zone one, I think). As they seem to be doing the work in reverse numerical order, it might not be for a while.

I'm seriously thinking about upgrading my Baader 7nm NB filters to Astrodon or Chroma 3nm versions. Not cheap though... 

[Gina]

I used to live in Portchester and my sister and brother in law live there now (as well as Spain).

[celestron8g8]

I see they provided a phone # for questions and inquiries . I would suggest you call and ask if the street lights will be pointed down and if there is a cover for side of fixtures that prevent side viewing ?   My next door neighbor has LED at their front poarch and when its on you can see the whole neighborhood . Behind my house a guy has an LED shining at the back of my house and it lights up my bedroom like daytime ! Don’t think for a minute LEDs’ are better for astronomy viewing cause they are brighter than daytime and if your close to one it is devastating !! LP GALORE !!

[Hertford Stargazer]

We have had new LED street lights for around 10 weeks. I find them very harsh on the eyes compared with the old sodium light but one major advantage was very noticeable when using a scope. With the old sodium lights I had internal reflections all over the place which made eye position critical and the glare wiped out a large portion of sky. With the new LED's I hardly get any internal reflections and can venture the scope much nearer the streetlight without glare.

The nearest light is about 15 foot from my observing position and as such I'm effectively 80% ish in full illumination, at first it seemed devastating for stargazing but the reality is pleasantly surprising, it actually seemed surreal, I mean being bathed in so much light yet still being able to see the sky in good detail kind of messes with the brain ?  

[Gfamily]

A friend was delighted when his streetlights were replaced with LEDs as it gave him back a southern view from the front of his house.

As for us, this is the difference that LEDs made on a local street

[johninderby]

Local street with the new LEDs dimmed after midnight. I’ve increased the brightness of the image to match what the eye sees as closely as I can.

[Demonperformer]

10 hours ago, Pompey Monkey said:

Not yet. I'm in Portchester (zone one, I think). As they seem to be doing the work in reverse numerical order, it might not be for a while.

I'm seriously thinking about upgrading my Baader 7nm NB filters to Astrodon or Chroma 3nm versions. Not cheap though... 

Baader are working on a set of 3.5nm filters that are set to be very competitively priced.

[Demonperformer]

Here is a link to my thread on these filters.

[Ouroboros]

I've heard several reports in the media recently of LED street lights being a cause of migraines.  Any truth in that? 

[Stub Mandrel]

31 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

I've heard several reports in the media recently of LED street lights being a cause of migraines.

My paranoia about parts of the media must be reaching fever pitch, I read that as 'LED street lights being a cause of migrants.' 

[johninderby]

Reading this thread shows there are many types of LED street lighting out there ranging from the very good to  the truly awful.

There should be some national standard for LED street lights because at the moment some councils are doing it the right way and some don’t have a clue what they’re doing...........about lighting that is.  ?

Cluelessness and councils is a can of worms to be left to other forums I think.  ?

[Pompey Monkey]

2 hours ago, Demonperformer said:

Here is a link to my thread on these filters.

I emailed Baader some while ago about these filters: alas there are no plans to produce 36 mm unmounted versions...

[chiltonstar]

Are the LED lights we are talking about in your area yellow-filtered or not, as I know some councils are using filtered ones. The issues are that unfiltered lights attract a lot of insects so the lights need cleaning regularly, and also from a driver's perspective, unfiltered LED lights have a large blue component in their spectrum which is scattered by any mist or haze and makes driving in poor conditions less safe (this was one of the reason that yellow Na D lights were used of course).

Filtered lights would be a lot better for us as well!

Chris

[melsmore]

I'm more concerned on what the LED colour temperature of the lights fitted outside my house is. A  presentation was made  the recent BAA/AAVSO meeting at Warwick by a member of the American Medical Association reporting significant increase in risk from cancer when exposed to LED light of higher colour temperature than 3000K. One BAA member's local council has installed 5700K lights (which are as toxic as it gets) everywhere apart from their National Parks, where they have installed 4000K ones (which are still bad enough). Anyone doubting the validity of the recent research should know that  the 2017 Nobel prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded for some work on it. You want your lights to be <3000K (or tuned off after midnight). 

See https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/04/26/new-led-streetlights-may-double-cancer-risk-new-research-warns/  for a summary.

I'm requested the specification from my local council, with a view to ensuring that the lights outside my house are 2700K ones. I've fitted blackout curtains but a significant amount of light still leaks in round the sides ?

I see yours are going to be 4000K ones, I believe the latest research shows that these still pose significant health risk.

[Jonk]

Well, today's the day!

I didn't know until I heard someone clobbering something out front this afternoon.

I managed to grab these photos through the bedroom window in a rush, so no pixel peeping please!

They were there for 10 minutes per post, and literally hammered it until it popped off!

You can see what they replaced it with, and I wasn't able to get a night shot of the previous lamp on at night, but have taken a snap of one further away I can see from the back windows.

 

[Saganite]

The street lamps in my village were changed a couple of years ago, and it is a great improvement, not least because every other lamp was removed. I was lucky anyway in that no lamps were visible from my rear garden, apart from one overlooking a car park to the rear , and that problem was solved. The new white lights are much better and are all  well shielded in a downwards direction.

[Jonk]

Here's one of the street now looking very white! The glare from the lighter vehicles is huge.

No doubt the visibility is much improved and longer term energy bills for the council will be lower, so win win there.

Astronony however, we'll see.

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Those are definitely the better type of luminaire - the LED array is recessed so light can't leak sideways, even if it isn't perfectly horizontal.

[happy-kat]

You're very lucky they did just a lamp head swap, sensible council. Our council must have bent over backwards as SSE ripped all the old lights including posts out and then installed new and more of them and taller.

[happy-kat]

Seeing Neil's comment you are even luckier then I thought. As all the new ones here spill out sideways and aren't horizontally mounted.

[Jonk]

Sometimes lamppost position and height doesn't comply with today's standards, so that might be why.

Ours must be relatively modern.

[happy-kat]

Even if so is no excuse for the new luminaire fitted which shine right at you even stood away from it as they aren't brilliantly contained.