No more Orange glow?

[jaquesnoir]

Is this good or bad? The council here are embarking on a street lamp replacement project. Half of the orange sodium lamps in my road were replaced today with ultra-bright white-light lamps. Although they are fairly well shrouded they do have a small amount of lateral emission and they seem so much brighter than the orange ones.

I think the white light is better on the eye, but it takes some getting used to - its like there's three full moons out there now.

Only time will tell whether the severe aerial glow around here will improve though.

It can't be worse than before, surely? Has anyone else had experience of these new white-light lamps?

Are they better or worse for aerial light polution?

[nicnac]

we have the replacements on my street including the backs.

they are not shrouded enough if you ask me. They should have a proper conical down lighting shade.

As for the effects they have on my viewing, well, i have one post on the one side and a second on the other, im right in the middle.....viewing the zenith is pretty much ok but any other direction you get glare.

Many a-time i have thought of a midnight mission to install my own shades on my closest street lights

[crazyjedi]

Down with street lights - up with big scopes!

I live close to the M5 which is orange light central. i think local authorities should be more mindfull of the effects of street lighting. More shrouding and cooler- duller bulbs too would save on light pollution and air pollution and save energy. Street lighting only need provide enough light to prevent us tripping over the kerb at night - not see the neighbours cat lick it's bum from 50 yards

[jaquesnoir]

LOL

I wish I'd known they were going to do it - I would have taken a series of before and after shots.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

The orange lights (usually lo-pressure sodium lights) are actually less of a pain, because LPR filters kill the two narrowly spaced spectral lines very well (something like 95%), the white ones are often near continuum emission, and a royal pain to get rid of (think bricks and wire cutters rather than LPR filters).

Bleh

[lukebl]

Does this mean that there will need to be a new generation of LP filters developed? Or will all filters be ineffective against the new beasts?

[Psychobilly]

Unless they are properly shaded give me the old LP Sodium lights over the new fangled "white" ones any day... the Orange glow from the Sodium lighting is narrow band and dead easy to filter out ...

Peter...

[lukebl]

Unless they are properly shaded give me the old LP Sodium lights over the new fangled "white" ones any day... the Orange glow from the Sodium lighting is narrow band and dead easy to filter out ...

Peter...

This is very worrying for the future.

The thought of light glow from nearby towns which can't be filtered out has huge implications for us. No doubt the new lights are more 'efficient'.

[nicnac]

my neodymium filter helps just a bit, enough to cut some of the glare.

still think the fence around my garden is set to "grow" though

[Psychobilly]

This is very worrying for the future.

The thought of light glow from nearby towns which can't be filtered out has huge implications for us. No doubt the new lights are more 'efficient'.

If they are properly designed and installed then they should be an improvement especially if you are fortunate enough to live in the "burbs" as you should end up loosing a lot of the skyglow dome over the Town and City centres...

I think the issue will be with more "local" lighting ... but shielding should help...

Peter...

[nicnac]

the new ones in my area have a little shield on them but the posts are also higher than the old ones so the shield that they have makes little difference.

[lukebl]

It's not the local sheilding I'm thinking of, its the accumulated glow over a broad spectrum which is very different from a narrow-band orange glow which can be relatively easily filtered out.

Presumably a filter which dealt with a broad spectrum would also filter out the stuff we're interested in.

[Beyond_Vision]

Yes the white light spreads over the range of the wanted signal from the object you are imaging so filtering will not help. Even with shielding some of this white light will be reflected from the ground then scattered by moisture in the air.

Regards

Kevin

[Astro_Baby]

On the upside with 1.86 billion of cuts to local authroities (though you should remember its County Councils who maintain streetlights not local or district councils) I think we can be pretty certain a lot of these lights are going out quite soon.

Some county councils are already turning them off.

I had a minor victory recently in getting a local Council to turn off its main office block uplighters after 11 PM - it was insane to be running huge carbon arc uplights to illiminate the offices all through the night. The area around the office is well lighted so it wont make much difference for local stargazers but you have to make a start somewhere.

[Keiran]

Air rifle and dont get caught

I can understand the importants of energy effiecent lights, but why not attach a sesor, off after say 12 and then when somebody approaches they turn on for a set time !!

[jaquesnoir]

All the new lamps are in place now so the old sodiums have gone. The new lamps have been on all day, presumably for testing.

I noticed that every one of the new lamp heads has a small antenna - What's that for I wonder? Maybe they use the world radio clock signal to sync their timers?

They are very bright.

[beamish]

The sames happened here in Leeds but in spite of appearances the sky IS actually darker-SHOCK HORROR, than the old dimmer LP Na lighting, I guess there's less leaking upwards

[jaquesnoir]

That's what I hope it will be like here too, Beamish. I'm keeping fingers crossed. The road outside is very bright but over the in the back garden I can't discern any difference from before. That may be because of low clouds reflecting the severe orange glow from the rest of the town. Maybe on a clear night it will be better than before. I think that if the whole town had downward lights it may make a difference to the intense glow.

To make matters slightly worse they have installed extra lamps because they had to put one by each of the new accursed speed humps that were installed last year.

Time will tell. I'll post the verdict after the next clear night.

[Psychobilly]

If the ground level light is "brighter" then it could be more of an issue to visual observers than imagers... that why I think the shielding is going to be important..

Peter...

[crazyjedi]

I'm going with the air rifle idea or maybe some low level EMP device!! Dark skies for all!!!!