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Dark Sky Lighting
- aaron695 3mo ago[dead]
- secretsatan 3mo agoHow much crap to go through before finding out what it is? This is like one of those recipe sites
- DerekL 3mo agoFrom the article: > See 6 important reasons for using it, or skip to What is Dark-Sky Lighting?
- ArekDymalski 3mo agoAlso from the article "2 minute read". And I thought that those news about atrophy of attention span are exaggerated.
- jannyfer 3mo agoTo be fair, I saw that, I saw the “skip” link, and thought “that’s ok, I’ll just scroll down” on my phone. It took SO many scrolls to get to the point. So the frustration is justified.
- dang 3mo agoThanks! We've changed the URL above to jump to that section (submitted URL was https://www.savingourstars.org/darkskylighting https://www.savingourstars.org/darkskylighting ).
- Jgoauh 3mo agoi like the concept but i don't like the stock images
- ahmedehab_01 3mo agoMy only gripe with amber lights is that they make me sleepy easily.
- estearum 3mo agoFeature 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
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- zamadatix 3mo agoThere is no "person A's sky only receives light from lamp A and person B's sky only receives light from lamp B" repeated 500,000 times. Both will make their own "simply existing in a city should not..." and "they can take that upon themselves" arguments about it and the problem that it's about what should be done with public space rather than the inside of their homes will still remain. The article would be a lot shorter if it were as easy as individuals taking on their own citywide lighting choice and perspective. Signed as someone who now lives in a much, much smaller "city" than before :).
- estearum 3mo agoYour argument is that someone stating "night time should be night time" has the same standing as someone stating "night time should be day time," just because neither person owns night time? No, they don't actually.
- zamadatix 3mo agoPeople feel their perspective about outdoor light is the obviously principled one which is uncontestably based on obvious realities everyone should agree of until they start talking at the bar about which hour offset the local clock should be in winter. The posted page goes through great effort to frame the problem from every perspective it possibly can precisely because it has spent enough time on the topic to understand how people won't agree it does/doesn't make obvious sense for a city to be dark because the sun went down. It's not because the author forgot to think of using a 3 line comment declaring it obvious instead, they know many people have many different angles they consider the important reasons it should be light/dark.
- kazinator 3mo agoI'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.
- zamadatix 3mo agoI've seen pretty much every variant of https://i.imgur.com/l9msIIM.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/l9msIIM.jpeg somewhere around most places I've visited in North America/Europe.
- kazinator 3mo agoAh ok. The naked globe type things that illuminate the vast cosmos above, I have seen in places like semi-private walkways around condo buildings or some commercial properties. Never as a high-powered municipal street light for traffic.
- Schiendelman 3mo agoLook at the lights next time you are in Gastown.
- swiftcoder 3mo agoOur new ones are extremely bright arrays of white LEDs, pointed down at a 45 degree angle. They may technically be collimated downwards, but it's bright as day underneath, and there is considerable reflected light going upwards.
- dotancohen 3mo agoWhy 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.
- dylan604 3mo agowhy are you asking dang these questions?
- dang 3mo ago(probably just a mistake. I moved the parent to the toplevel now.)
- dotancohen 3mo agoOops, thanks.
- tetris11 3mo agoThe 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
- RIMR 3mo agoThere are lots of safety arguments for street lighting. For one, as a city dweller, I would be absolutely terrified walking around at night, having to rely on a flashlight to see anything. Not just a "scared of the dark" thing, but good outdoor lighting discourages things like robberies and assaults. And sure, cars could just use their headlights, but still, visibility in populated areas would be very bad, and safety for pedestrians at night would be awful.
- Zak 3mo agoThe site links a couple studies coming to a different conclusion about crime. Feeling safer doesn't necessarily mean you are safer. As for pedestrian safety, button-activated lights over crosswalks are one potential alternative to always-on outdoor lighting. It might lead to a considerable safety improvement once people got used to the light being an indication that pedestrians are likely present.
- dash2 3mo agoI’ve been in cities with inadequate street lighting, and driving in them at night is terrifying. Car lights are not an adequate substitute on a busy road. I agree that in small towns and the country, street lighting is unnecessary.
- kakacik 3mo agoI love my evening walks in the vineyards around our place, wine growers have these 4m wide tarmac access roads that criss-cross hills with vineyards for easier access, but nobody is there during late evening/night (sans infrequent dog walkers). I never have to use any light, light form stars, moon and glow from nearby villages is enough to see the road, it doesn't contain any potholes or other tricks. Watching big 100km lake, villages and towns on its shores, with alps in the distance. All that being said, its a terrible idea to expect whole villages or cities should work like that. Paired with cyclists is much worse, is it really that hard to imagine why? Even for cars, there are many things my head lamps reveal a bit too late compared to seeing people or obstacles well ahead, ie unlit clueless cyclists like you would be one strong category.
- functionmouse 3mo ago> Too much light ... makes us less safe by creating harsh shadows and giving criminals a place to hide. LMAO
- Zak 3mo agoIt does link a couple studies to back up that claim. Critiques of those studies or evidence for the opposite would contribute to the conversation; this does not.
- esikich 3mo agoUsed to use this to great effect for capture the flag when I was a kid. We used to do it across the whole neighborhood. We realized that standing in shadows cast near street lights were excellent places to just stand and watch the other team. The bright light makes your eyes adjust and the shadows from nearby tree trunks become black voids.
- duskdozer 3mo agoThis is an issue driving the mistaken belief that we need more and more light, especially bright blue LEDs. The LEDs have a hard cutoff between light and dark zones, and both the blue tint and the excessive brightness of the lights decrease your night vision and make your eyes become more unable to see anything outside of these small lit zones.
- soulofmischief 3mo agoThe low-frequency flicker also reduces motion resolution, and these LED lights are typically narrowband, meaning the CRI (Color Reproduction Index) is typically low enough that it meaningfully affects resolution across the board, from motion resolution to shape resolution. Typically under these bright blue narrowband LEDs I still find myself squinting and unable to make anything out, despite the intensity of the light. The whole industry of public lighting is a massive scam that is completely out of touch with the research.
- bob1029 3mo agoThere 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.
- hoofader 3mo agoI 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.
- yellow_postit 3mo agoMany of the links have soft 404s as well. Seems like a dead site.
- Centigonal 3mo agoThere 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
- xattt 3mo ago> 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.
- dheera 3mo agoI 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.
- esikich 3mo agoI think the heat differentials and particulates would still make city astrophotography pretty sub par.
- linkregister 3mo agoI'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.
- duskdozer 3mo agoAn issue is that they advocate for 3000K color temp which, while it's a significant improvement compared to many LEDs, is still very much too blue and not amber for nighttime. 2200K should be the target: https://www.atpiluminacion.com/energy-savings-dark-sky-protection-colldejou-led-lighting.html https://www.atpiluminacion.com/energy-savings-dark-sky-prote...
- internet_points 3mo agoGood intentions, but these days there's an even bigger threat: https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/115840278905803451 https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/115840278905803451 https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/116796122687129600 https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/116796122687129600 https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/03/31/starlink-sprays-debris-after-another-satellite-anomaly/5220257 https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/03/31/starlink-spra...
- include 3mo agoFrom 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.
- ungreased0675 3mo agoOk, 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.
- philipallstar 3mo agoThis 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.
- dogtimeimmortal 3mo agoIt's sad to see more sites not testing outside of the Chrome/Edge/Safari cartel. Here are a couple related resources which actually display in a non-Chrome browser: https://www.darkskynova.org/ https://www.darkskynova.org/ https://darksky.org/ https://darksky.org/
- kingnothing 3mo agoThat site works fine in Firefox.
- whall6 3mo agothe 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.
- throw0101d 3mo ago> 2. modern 100 W light bulbs typically use LED and only require ~14 W of power (so ~14% of the power draw) You are limiting yourself to residential light bulbs, which previously typically came in "100W" (actually 1,600 lumen) and "60W" (actually 800 lumen) varieties. Yes, the modern indoor 1600 and 800 lumen bulbs now use less power. But if you look up street lights, you'll find HPS/Halide can use 100-400W, while modern LED use 50-150W. Also architectural lamps that wash against the side of a building may have different outputs. Given the hundreds/thousands of street lights out there, if (say) half the light is going up (or even sideways) that's a lot of waste: we could all the photons that are going up/out could be redirect down then we could reduce the power needed even further. > 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. And what does this light do to people's (and animals') circadian rhythms? What does the excess glare of street lights do to road users (like drivers), especially after it has rained? What have we lost 'culturally' by not being able to see the stars?
- cactacea 3mo agoI 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.
- summarybot 3mo agoCan Elon please paint the satellites non-reflective darkness? They're funking up my stargazing