24 comments

[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 45.6 ms ] thread
How much crap to go through before finding out what it is? This is like one of those recipe sites
i like the concept but i don't like the stock images
My only gripe with amber lights is that they make me sleepy easily.
Feature not a bug

Simply existing in a city should not compel you or other creatures to stay awake

If a person wants to stay awake at night then they can take that upon themselves

I've not seen a streetlight anywhere that wasn't collimated downward. Traditional neons are amber.

So we had it right well over half century ago as far as street lighting went.

Why can the user only accept, but not reject the cookies? I personally do not care, I block them in the browser.

Why is the "e" in "responsible" on a new line?

  Dark-Sky
  Lighting is
  Responsibl
  e Lighting.
The safety argument for street lighting makes me sad. I'd prefer if people just used their phone torches at night.

I used to cycle home in pitch black, watching the stars. Never had any incidents, others would notice me or I them before anything happened

> Too much light ... makes us less safe by creating harsh shadows and giving criminals a place to hide.

LMAO

There are quite a few homes in my area that still use gas lamps at night. The HOA is pretty good about sending letters to people who install 100w 5500k led cannons in their exterior fixtures.
I was staying on the main page waiting for something to happen, and then I realize I should scroll down!

I love the concept, but not sure how we can convince everyone to follow.

There are some nice curb-cut effects of dark-sky lighting:

- The circadian rhythms of birds and nocturnal creatures are less severely affected

- Amber lights produce less insomnia

- The dumb streetlight across the street doesn't blind me from my bedroom window

> The dumb streetlight across the street doesn't blind me from my bedroom window

I had this issue, and I contacted the power company to re-aim the offending streetlight.

I wish they made lights monochromatic in one R, one G, one B wavelength, that way they'd be easier to filter out in astrophotography.

Sodium lights were acutally kind of nice because they're mildly filterable with dinodymium glass.

I'm convinced, but then all the links to actually acquiring the bulbs are broken or for wholesalers.

The city of Flagstaff page says the following: Though it is still generally true that any LED product described as “Amber” will have lower impacts, as of early 2024 we cannot recommend any particular product as the quality control of the consumer-grade product lines is not providing products with consistent spectra.

It looks like this is still a nascent product line for residential lighting.

From someone who suffer from light-sensitivity - LEDs are a disgrace. I am happy to see this discussion here - seems there are more people with similar issues with LEDS.
Ok, I’m sold. Can I get a link to some high quality residential outdoor fixtures? I’m digging through the links on that page and not finding much.
This is one of those issues where, assuming the lighting is sufficient to keep people safe at night, only some a few bloody-minded people would object to it, and everyone else can find a reason to like it.
the film in the article says:

"a 100 W light bulb turned on every night for a year takes equivalent energy output from burning half a ton of coal"

I get that this film is probably dated, but there are so many things wrong with this:

1. 100 W for 8 hours at night * 365 days in a year is 292 kWh; a ton of coal burned in a power plant produces ~1,000 kWh. so, much less than half a ton. still alot though...

2. modern 100 W light bulbs typically use LED and only require ~14 W of power (so ~14% of the power draw)

3. neither of the above actually matter though because power at night is essentially free; wind turbines, hydro, geo thermal, etc. all continue to work at night and can't be easily shut off, even though demand for power is much much lower.

given that energy waste is not an issue, the benefits of solving this problem are restricted to being able to view stars, preventing a few birds from running into buildings, and requiring residents near outdoor lighting to install curtains (though it seems like even with lights that are dimmed and pointing downwards, most people that live near them would still install curtains anyways, whether for darkness or just privacy...).

This must be weighed with the benefits of having lights on in the first place.

I hike at night fairly regularly and use either a dim red light or no light at all. I'm willing to bet that most people don't have any idea how good their fully dark adapted night vision actually is, especially with any sort of moonlight. The bigger problem I've found are bright lights that just blow out your night vision entirely. It only takes a few seconds to undo 30-40 minutes of adaptation.
Can Elon please paint the satellites non-reflective darkness? They're funking up my stargazing