Happy days !! (And fainter stars!!)

[Shaun_the_Sheep]

This news article has really made my day. I mostly observe from my back yard in Belfast.  Hopefully this is going to make a real difference. Anyone else have any experience of what to expect. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-48038706

[DeepSkyBagger]

I had a similar response to you when the LED streetlights were introduced here a few years ago. Since then, I have watched deep-sky objects slowly fade and disappear. From my skies being generally poor, they are now totally unusable. I can no longer observe the galaxies and so on that I want to.

The sky, instead of being a muddy orange colour, is now bright white. The LED lights have totally ruined my already horrible skies.

Sorry (really sorry) to be the bearer of bad news.

[RobertI]

22 minutes ago, Shaun_the_Sheep said:

This news article has really made my day. I mostly observe from my back yard in Belfast.  Hopefully this is going to make a real difference. Anyone else have any experience of what to expect. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-48038706

I hope it has a positive effect, but sounds like it's a bit of a lottery as to whether things get better or worse! There are LED streetlights scattered around my neighbourhood, the beams seem to be well directed downwards in the main, but some of them are just way too bright, unnecessarily so imo. Interesting point that the Armagh Planetarium Director makes in your link about needing warmer coloured LEDs, can't imagine this would make much difference to light pollution though as it is still 'broadband' light?

[laser_jock99]

The brightness of LED lighting is overkill. Some luminaires are designed to be non-directional too. We used to have a softly glowing sodium lamp in the alleyway beside the house. And now.......

Edited April 25, 2019 by laser_jock99

[JamesF]

1 minute ago, laser_jock99 said:

The brightness is overkill. We used to have a softly glowing sodium lamp in the alleyway beside the house. And now.......

I thought you were posting about street lights, but you appear to have attached a photo where the Sun is shining...

James

[laser_jock99]

4 minutes ago, JamesF said:

I thought you were posting about street lights, but you appear to have attached a photo where the Sun is shining...

James

I should suround it with solar panels......

[Gina]

Looks like you could run your whole household off those!!!

[JamesF]

Just now, laser_jock99 said:

I should suround it with solar panels......

You know, I almost want to find out if that would actually work

Even if it didn't it would be quite funny to get a load of old ones and mount them somewhere highly visible near your boundary to act as a light barrier.  And I bet there'd be at least one ranting lunatic writing the the local papers and council complaining that you're using public resources to reduce your electricity bill

James

[RobertI]

11 minutes ago, laser_jock99 said:

The brightness of LED lighting is overkill. Some luminaires are designed to be non-directional too. We used to have a softly glowing sodium lamp in the alleyway beside the house. And now.......

That's mad! ? You have a good case to get that replaced. I live on a new estate, and the LED lights had a very wide beam, and were  clearly designed to illuminate large traffic junctions, not suitable for residential use as they shone into gardens and upstairs windows. When pointed out to the council, they changed them pretty quickly. I watched it happen and it literally took 5 minutes per lamp! So don't lose all hope.

[laser_jock99]

1 minute ago, RobertI said:

That's mad! ? You have a good case to get that replaced. I live on a new estate, and the LED lights had a very wide beam, and were  clearly designed to illuminate large traffic junctions, not suitable for residential use as they shone into gardens and upstairs windows. When pointed out to the council, they changed them pretty quickly. I watched it happen and it literally took 5 minutes per lamp! So don't lose all hope.

The Council put a rather ineffective shade on it already.  Fortunately this is not my main observing site.

[Shaun_the_Sheep]

Thanks all for the heads up on this one. My local council have already installed of few of these around the corner from my home. I'll take another look at them and try to ascertain beam brightness and direction. Will report back. 

[Paz]

Led street lights went up in my street and estate a couple of weeks ago.  The lights are more directional and point more of their light down than slideways or up, but they are significantly brighter. My garage door now looks like car headlights are shining on it all the time, but the other side of the street away from the lamp post is much darker, or rather  it just looks darker in comparison to the lit area.

I've not had a chance to measure the effect  through a scope since then but I don't need to do any testing to be able to say if you are in the line of sight of any of those new lights your night vision will be severely affected.