Sodium light is actually pretty great from light pollution perspective, because it is extremely easy to filter it out, as it is a very narrow band. Astronomers prefer sodium lamps, for example.
Dead moths prefer sodium lamps too, or something. Currently, LEDs are kind of stupid, too. The parking lot outside my home has fixtures with builtin LEDs which will last, like forever. So there's no need to make the LEDs replaceable like a bulb had to be.
Except they do break (they dim into a faint glow, and the brown out completely) and they have to replace the whole fixture.
> Dead moths prefer sodium lamps too, or something.
Isn't that just because it is very hot so they die?
> Except they do break (they dim into a faint glow, and the brown out completely) and they have to replace the whole fixture.
That's the big lie of LED industry; we can make ones lasting 50-100k hours... except we won't cos that would put price up by a bit and get out-competed.
It's exactly the other way around. Now I'm afraid this is some kind of common misconception, like "not only are LEDs great when it comes to efficiency, they don't pollute the light either!"
The ones around here direct the light downwards at the street instead of almost-every-direction like the old ones did, so it's kind-of true that the LED ones have less light pollution (I know I'm getting a hell of a lot less light into my windows), but it's because of the lamp shape and not that they're LEDs.
yes this was my observation, since the ones outside my house were replaced I have much less light into my house and I can see the stars. I assumed it must be some factor of the LED design that makes it easier to direct downwards though
It's not really true that they pollute less. One thing that has happened due to their "lower power and longer life" is that they are being installed in a lot of places where they aren't needed.
Where I live, the city decided in the downtown core to wrap non-diffused non-rectified LEDs around the poles in spirals. What this means is that if you're walking or driving, you are looking directly at the light as opposed to a traditional fixture that is pointed downward and may also have a cover.
One of the reasons my wife and I moved to the country is because there is so much LED lighting everywhere that the sky glows white at night. Our neighbors have also taken to competing with each other to see who can install the brightest spotlights around our city house. One guy installed a 15000 lumen flood in his driveway which was lighting up our bedroom at night through the blinds.
I really think we're going to have to ban certain forms of exterior lighting or nobody is going to be sleeping well.
My mother told me that a neighbour across the street from her that we know installed a light like that because he was paranoid that people were going to break into his car at night or something. It's been changed to a different less-bright light. She thinks another neighbour must have complained. The new one is still on most of the night but it's not as bright. I think it's ridiculous. If someone is going to go into your car, a light isn't going to stop them and in fact, might even discourage people from looking if it's too bright.
These new LEDs are just trash. Some houses, you see them stuffed in a foot apart all around the soffits on multiple levels and when you walk at night they just make the place look cheap and tacky compared to how it used to be before when people would place an incandescent flood at ground level shining upward.
Would have been amusing if you mounted an adjustable mirror on the wall near your window to aim the high-power beam straight back at their own window if talking to them first didn't work. Seems fair. It doesn't need to be pointed directly at you after all.. when it could be pointed at the driveway instead..
