Protecting our Dark Skies

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

The milkyway in all its glory is a stunning sight and thanks for sharing that pic BobH.

Time is actually running out for the petition and signatories have slowed in the last couple of weeks. Quite a few people including myself have been putting lots of effort in to raise awareness. Not only on the Astronomy side but RSPB, Bat groups and Environmental awareness groups too.

We can only try and any help is welcome including showing people what the sky should be like

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Personally I suspect the person mentioned here has a type of solution that would help but not cure – even lighting levels but not as high as they currently are.

**LINK**

It's interesting to look at how street lighting developed.

My nan didn't like to see gas street being replaced by pretty ordinary bulbs. All down to colour temperature. The early lights gave a bright pool of light under the lamp and and a weaker fairly even light between them. More than enough to see dog poo and people etc. They were low and had a sort top hat when bulbs were used and didn't send much light up at all. Levels reflected were low enough to not really interfere with the sky that much. Driving around with this lighting was fine. Worth having headlights and people could be seen just as they could see vehicles.

Main road lighting used a lot more light power. Low pressure sodium and this spread to any listed road over time and more and more has been added since. Even in the early days as it spread people were complaining about driving through sections of road lit like this and then into no lighting at all. Having experienced this all I can conclude is that it's largely down to the illumination levels where listed roads are lit. They are so high that headlamps are pointless so it takes some time for our eyes to adjust and for short periods things do look really black. I also think pedestrians are less likely to notice cars. I experienced that very recently on a road where they have fitted main road type led and increased light levels dramatically. I've hardly ever seen any luminars that actually tend to send light upwards. The vast majority by a huge margin never have to any great extent so all of the problems are down to reflection This is noticeable when roads are wet.

I grew up on a B'ham overspill estate as they are usually called. Lots of houses and open countryside close as well. Most of the street lighting went off at 11pm – so good Brumies would go to bed at a reasonable time and not be late for work the following day. One thing that was very noticeable was that all was fine given moderate levels of moonlight. Walking through fields especially on windy days on moonless nights was a bit scary at times. Then some one had the "bright" idea of leaving some on all night. Generally at road junctions and some thought about roads with bends and distance between lamps etc. This was pretty good from both a walking about and the driving point of view. Then rospa i suspect found out that there was less accidents so all were left on. The only reason I remember is because my father for some reason wasn't happy about it. Rates probably but some sort of deal was done with the electricity suppliers aka economy 7 or the for runner I suspect.

So next thing was lots of lighting at listed road junctions but mainly A roads that never went off. Ever since they have been filling in the gaps and using higher and higher light outputs. I live on a B road. It's purely residential yet I still have A road lighting. To be honest I doubt if I could sleep in one of the front rooms. There is hardly any traffic on it after dusk. There has been a few deaths. Some one ran into a tree well of the road some how and the others down to people coming straight out of side roads. Also some serious injuries on pedestrian crossings. The lighting hasn't helped. They just happen from time to time. It does everywhere. One side road has been lit with the led types that just have to be placed on one side of the road. Vision on it isn't really any better than it was. It also seems rather dark after the B road. No buses come down it. They use another road that runs parallel – that has ordinary street lights as have other side roads. When one or more of these fail it's surprising how well they light up areas well away from them. Dimmer yes but it's still easy to see.

Some councils have started turning lights off to save money. Others would prefer to shut libraries and other public services. When a council does turn them of the inevitable headline is that some one got run over. No thought about how often this has happened in the past or anything else. People do get run over and if a dark lane I suspect many would wear a reflective arm band if there was ever much traffic about or at least keep and eye and ear open for it. On the one headline that was well covered I can't help wondering why the driver didn't see the pedestrian.

It looks like Worcester astro club may have done something about the extremely high light levels on the M5 near there or maybe it's cost. I think they now turn them off at some point. The light levels these achieve is absolutely amazing – and pointless as well. It seems the chairman of the club was consulted on some of the choices. He must have been seen as a stakeholder as the bull goes. In truth councils are largely a law unto themselves and I can't imagine a person with his interests approving of the particular light type they fitted. The results are much like a very dull day.

John

–

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

Just to re-post the petition link

**LINK**

Thanks all for the support up to now

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

My brother lives in a more urban location than me, but has darker skies because his council turn most of the lights off at midnight.

There are good and bad LEDs narrowband are not as bad as wideband. Most new street lighting is better designed and therefore can help reduce the problem by putting light where it is needed and not needing as much power, whatever technology is used.

My problem if made vastly worse by a handful of very badly aimed and incredibly powerful lights at a nearby container yard (exempt from the regs even though all the lights are on all night and it closes at six), some over-lit factory yards (again exempt, even though they are deserted after six), a dual carriageway with old-style yellow sodium that send almost as much light up as down. All three of these could be improved through sensible legislation.

Neil

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 11/06/2016 19:39:09:

My brother lives in a more urban location than me, but has darker skies because his council turn most of the lights off at midnight.

There are good and bad LEDs narrowband are not as bad as wideband. Most new street lighting is better designed and therefore can help reduce the problem by putting light where it is needed and not needing as much power, whatever technology is used.

My problem if made vastly worse by a handful of very badly aimed and incredibly powerful lights at a nearby container yard (exempt from the regs even though all the lights are on all night and it closes at six), some over-lit factory yards (again exempt, even though they are deserted after six), a dual carriageway with old-style yellow sodium that send almost as much light up as down. All three of these could be improved through sensible legislation.

Neil

I do feel for you Neil, and I too have a unit behind me with a Sodium light that doesn't know which time of day it should be on! the lux sensor obviously doesn't work right and the owners when I spoke to them just said they'd get someone to look at it. It's still the same 18 months down the line.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

They don't help at all Neil as the bulk of the problem is reflected light of even the ground. All better luminars do is spread light more evenly. Like most things there is lot of bull around.

Nuisance lighting. I think that the rules apply to any premisses. A law was introduced some years ago now and applies to all but unfortunately not the stuff the state erect in our streets. You should find details on the web.

Personally I spout on the subject when ever or where ever it crops up but unless lots of people don't do the same thing it will only get worse. I should add that power leds which are often used in a number of things function by exposing phosphors to near uv and don't emit narrow bands at all. The main road led lighting round here very definitely doesn't emit narrow band. I took a look with a spectroscope. Expect more and more of these to be used as time goes on. Work is also being done to arrange for more colours to be emitted. Mainly for architectural lighting at the moment.

Anyway a quote from that link I posted. The same sort of thing is going on all over the country. I wonder if it would be the same if they were spending their money rather than ours.

Nicholas believes local authorities should explore the option of dimming existing streetlighting, which still has years of life left in it, rather than spending millions on brand new LEDs. ‘Manchester and Cardiff have both invested heavily in high-intensity discharge lighting over the last 15 years,’ he says. ‘Cardiff are spending £1.7 million to dim 22,365 lights and saving £312,000 a year. In Manchester they could save £570,000 [if they did the same]. Instead they’re planning to save £750,000 a year on an LED rollout that’s going to cost £33 million, and all the kit they’ve installed in the last 10 years goes in the skip. The lighting level will be less, the glare will be greater and generations of taxpayers will be paying for the debt.’

In part it's all down to fashion and financially a bit like one of use going a Rolls Royce when we can only afford a 3 wheeler. One difference though – the replacement isn't an improvement at all really. If some one in a company put forwards pay back times like these – if they do pay back in this case they would probably be sacked.

John

–

Edited By Ajohnw on 11/06/2016 21:06:39

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

Spread the word John and thanks for the Info.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

LP sodium may be best for narrowband imagers and even those with LP filters, but bad sodium lighting still robs most ordinary people of their night skies and is visible to most wildlife.

Reflection is something of a red herring – the albedo of tarmac is only 2-10% and that of concrete is 5-25%, both rather lower than most people expect, even snow is less than 90%.

And regardless of the source, how can using less light more effectively not make a difference?

It's an oft-repeated mistake in regulation to be too prescriptive in the methods rather than setting proper standards. Rather like an approach to H&S which is about setting the rules rather than judging success by how effective you are at reducing the frequency and severity of accidents.

What the UK needs is a proper dark sky strategy that would set acceptable standards for levels of light pollution for different types of area, local authorities and others would then be judged on how effectively they controlled light pollution, not the manner in which they do so.

This would naturally create the incentive to use the most effective solutions, but also allow flexibility, we have to accept astronomers aren't the only interest group..

Neil

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

Well written Neil. Thanks for putting the action needed into perspective.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

That's part of the problem Neil. A lot of people think the lights radiate upwards. Few do unless some how light manages to pass through the top of the liminar. Here's a shot of a typical low pressure sodium light. It's pretty clear that none goes up from the light itself only down over a very wide area.

The other fact that people don't seem to realise that watt wise they are pretty high and in terms of actual light output compared with other forms of lighting extremely bright. It doesn't take many as far as watts in go to get to a kw. Efficiency wise they are around 10 times better than typical filament bulbs of any type so even a single street light in this respect is putting out 2kw or more.

What is actually happening with the so called better liminars is that they are using much taller lamp posts so that the light spreads further and the luminars help to make it even but as they are higher there is a need to make them brighter just to maintain the same light levels as the shorter older ones gave but at the same time they are increasing the light levels by putting out even more light.

However if people want to carry on believing it's nothing to do with light bounce that's fine by me but it's a common misunderstanding as they just don't realise how much light is being given out. Or what it costs to run them I strongly suspect.

Actually I had one to test glass for flatness. Smallest I could get. Way too bright even in a large room. The sizes fitted to street lights are way more powerful. From memory they can go up to around 400w and the minimum was around 250.

At one time I used to count up the Kw as drove past them but the numbers get too high rather quickly even on short stretches.

John

–

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Well, I, if anything, would like a darker sky just so it makes a few drunkard goons realize how late it actually is.

Michael W

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

As good a reason as any Michael.
I rarely see anyone in the dead of night but thats in the middle of nowhere. It’s probably much safer than a brightly lit street in the middle of a town or city.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Ajohnw on 12/06/2016 00:05:00:

That's part of the problem Neil. A lot of people think the lights radiate upwards. Few do unless some how light manages to pass through the top of the liminar. Here's a shot of a typical low pressure sodium light. It's pretty clear that none goes up from the light itself only down over a very wide area.

I don't argue that well designed lights don't. But just because a light is LP sodium doesn't mean it is benign.

My problems are largely caused but poorly designed or installed LPS lights, for example a quarter of a mile away is afactory where every yard light is fitted against a wall and directing its main beam horizontally. They are switched on all night and create a large light dome. Clearly 50% of the light from such lamps goes up, so the percentage reflected up from the ground has to be lower. The container yard uses HP sodium, again most of their spotlights are virtually horizontal as they try to get the beam to go as far as possible.

It's also very obvious as I drive along the dual carriageway where the newly installed lights (like those in your picture) change to older luminaires that send out lots of undirected light, brightly illuminating our adjacent houses some 100 yards from them. The Highways agency have apologised for this and said that replacement lights will be better directed, and even pointed out that while they will illuminate the A38, they won't properly illuminate the service road between the houses and the dual carriageway any more.

So from my personal perspective the problem is design and installation of the luminaires in every case.

But this isn't the point – the petition is against light pollution, not against sodium lighting. Good sodium lighting is part of the solution.

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

There has been some lengthy post's since the link to the petition was posted last and I'm just worried it will be lost to those reading the thread so here it is again with the details:-

The petition can be found here. If you do sign you will receive an email which you have to respond to for the signature to go through. It is a government website and you won't receive any spam by doing this.

**LINK**

Please give your support which will be much appreciated. 

The link also contains a map which is interesting.

Edited By damian noble on 12/06/2016 10:42:00

[Steven VineParticipant @stevenvine79904]

I signed in at 5,727. Only another 4273 to go for the 10,000!

100,000 seems to be unreachable by 22nd July.

I hope it gets through.

Steve

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

LPS is way way better for people who are interested in astronomy but slowly but surely they are being replaced. Street lights rarely send any light upwards. I can only think of one that I am currently aware of. A local resident persuaded the council to fit it. It shines near horizontally and also emits near white light. The only one like this in the entire village.

The white light aspect has been followed by some councils. If you look at the wiki entries on street lighting you will see why in one of them. Some testing which must be purely subjective reckons that driver response times are reduced by up to 25%. Also that people walking around in it "feel better" about others. This could well be why Worcester fitted the lights they did on the M5. The new ones installed on listed roads round here are rather orange and when asked the installers said they were led. I'd guess they are low on blue output to keep costs down however I think they do emit some of the near UV or aren't led at all. It's called dental blue sometimes and we can see it. The orangey colour just like LPS does have an effect on the visibility of certain colours and despite the increased light levels and for other reasons it's still possible to notice jay walking pedestrians a bit on the late side just as it was with the previous LPS.

Personally if I had your local factory problem I would take it up with the local MP but ours is a good one. You would need to be well armed with information and lay it on a bit thick. Anything you can think of and ideas about what they could fit and why.

Or you could make a load of polished stainless steel reflectors and go fit them yourself.

A place I worked at had security problems. Very high fence and hard to imagine how anybody could climb over it. There were vehicles in the yard and break ins became pretty regular. First thing they did was fit lights. These got smashed so more went in high up shining down. The break ins continued so next came cameras. They wore hoodies etc and waved at the cameras. A security firm came next that looked around there often. That fixed the problem but never caught anybody. They had to have keys and use the usual gizmo to show that they had been there checking.

John

–

Edited By Ajohnw on 12/06/2016 11:22:41

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

Posted by Steven Vine on 12/06/2016 10:50:56:

I signed in at 5,727. Only another 4273 to go for the 10,000!

100,000 seems to be unreachable by 22nd July.

I hope it gets through.

Steve

Many thanks Steve.

I agree that the higher count is un-achievable but to get to 10K would at least bring this to the attention of the government. We can but try

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

Going to try to post the link at the top of each page many thanks to all for reading

The petition can be found here. If you do sign you will receive an email which you have to respond to for the signature to go through. It is a government website and you won't receive any spam by doing this.

**LINK**

Cheers

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Not street lighting, but the council, or more properly the recreation hall committee has taken the old fluro tubes out of the local hall, and replaced them with LEDs, the light level is better, and it is a fairly soft light. Ian S C

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Two more from here. Thanks for the heads up.

Cheers,

Rod

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

Many thanks for your support Rod.
I hope more will take the time to add theirs and pass on the word.

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

I'm signing myself.

If left unchecked for decades, this could become more than a nuisance and more a problem for public health, i think being diurnal species, we rely on light to tell us when to get up and when to go to sleep.(The brain goes through cycles of neuro-chemicals, such as dopamine and serotonin vaguely resembling a day/night cycle, for example)

It's been this way since forever, and as we turn more and more of our land into a metropolis we need to build responsibly and consider limiting growth altogether, of which this is a subset of. 

It might be early days for the awareness of this problem, but they wont be able to ignore this forever, i'm quite certain of that.

Michael W

 

 

 

Edited By Michael Walters on 12/06/2016 20:49:38

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

Thank you Michael.

It isn’t just about being able to see the stars it is more and many miss the point you are making.

[damianParticipant @damiannoble34800]

Here's how the light pollution in the UK look's from space.

The image above was taken from the International Space Station by Astronaut Paulo Nespoli (European Space Agency) during his six month mission. Tim Peake also has quite a few photo's on the net.

The main cities can easily be picked out, and looking closer you can make out major road networks such as the M25 around London. The problem is growing worse.

The petition can be found below. If you do sign you will receive an email which you have to respond to for the signature to go through. It is a government website and you won't receive any spam by doing this.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/119428

Many thanks to all that have supported and signed this already. Your support is greatly appreciated

Damian

Edited By damian noble on 13/06/2016 10:35:11

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Circadian rhythms are something our lab are very involved with Michael.

**LINK**

regards Martin

[Author]

Posts