LED street lights

[fifeskies]

Just had our old fluorescent street lights changed in our village to new LED that are much more directed down just onto the road.

Much less upward and sideways light spill.

Compare in particular the spill onto the 2 storey house on the left in the 2 photos.

On the right , the houses are now in shadow.

 

From my garden the village is a much darker place, though some directly under the new lights now have floodlit gardens.

Fortunately my garden is not one of them, and my observing spot is up a long garden away from the road. 

(I do have a lamp out the front of my house, but the house blocks it from the garden).

 

Previously I could see a few street lights from my garden as bright hotspots in the distance due to side leak, the same lamp-posts  are almost invisible now.

 

Top photo is before , bottom one after

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2020 by fifeskies

[Pixies]

That was one well-lit village!

[JamesF]

It's a huge improvement, but still overkill I reckon.  If only someone could invent something that could be fixed to the front of cars or carried about in one's hand to illuminate the path ahead without the need for all this lighting which, much of the time, may serve no purpose at all...

James

[adyj1]

4 minutes ago, JamesF said:

It's a huge improvement, but still overkill I reckon.  If only someone could invent something that could be fixed to the front of cars or carried about in one's hand to illuminate the path ahead without the need for all this lighting which, much of the time, may serve no purpose at all...

James

@JamesF, I think you've just had a lightbulb moment. 😂

Good result for you @fifeskies👍 

[fifeskies]

another before and after set

 

bear in mind the camera does make it look brighter than it actually is.

Even the before lighting wasn't exactly floodlight levels, though it does look bright in the photos, but a lot darker now.

 

The light  is concentrated onto the actual road and not allowed to spill off to the side onto the buildings.

 

 

Edited September 18, 2020 by fifeskies

[JeremyS]

Good to here this  @fifeskies!

A similar effect when it was introduced in my village too. But our lamp posts are further apart.

[Mr Spock]

Yes, except they are much brighter. What I have found here, west side of a city, is the bright orange sky to my east and dark sky to the west, has become a uniform light grey. Looking straight up I used to be able to see the milky way, now my limiting magnitude is about 4.5.

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Looks like a nice improvement in reducing the unnecessary stray light pollution, not to mention the carbon reduction!

Have you had a chance to observe yet? Any improvement to the conditions?

Where I live the council has just started an 11 million pound conversion of around 26k sodium lights to LED. They couldn't do this soon enough IMO. Facing North in my points towards a major town which has all been changed over. The yellow sky has now been replaced by a grey /black in that direction.  I don't know how much of an impact doing this conversion will have on LP but I hope its very positive all round. 

If you look at Kent on the light pollution map the medway towns is the only area that's Red/orange levels. The rest of Kent is yellow and green as I believe it all has LED lights now bar medway.

Baz

[alacant]

<rant>

I don't understand is why the posts are so close. Take away 2 from 3 and you'd still have adequate light for thieves to see what they were stealing. Ridiculous.

</rant>

[Carbon Brush]

My village has had 3 sets of street lights since I moved there in 2007. Standard (orange) sodium, high pressure sodium and now LED.
Despite the very different light spread from the lights, they have left the new posts in the same places as the old. Because it eases wiring I expect.

The main street is like daylight now. But like @fifeskiesthe better beam spread has helped my back garden.
Why a village needs 24/7 daylight is beyond my underatanding.

My local light pollution generator, Nottinghamshire County Council, seem to have unfortunately little idea of how to use road lighting.
If they put a little intelligent thought into their work, instead of just putting brighter lights everywhere, they could save lots of money.
But communication with them on anything road related is reminiscent of shovelling water up a hill.

[fifeskies]

 

37 minutes ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

Have you had a chance to observe yet? Any improvement to the conditions?

I have noticed a slight improvement  in that the few hot spots in the distance (direct view of lamp post head) have almost gone now, but my ROR was already way up the top of a long garden away from the streetlights and so it is largely the same when looking up. Bortle 4.

Helps to keep night vision to not have the bright spots that catch your eye when you forget not to look over in the road direction.

The entire garden now seems darker as there is no "glow" from the road however.

 

Its the huge glow from the big town other side of the hill (low to south) that needs new LED lighting, now that would improve things.

[DaveS]

No streetlights in my village, or the one up the road. In fact I think the nearest are something like 4-5 miles away. Unfortunately there are a lot of them (Bridport).