A simple streetlight hack could protect astronomy from urban light pollution

[Admin]

Blinking streetlights could protect astronomy from the damaging effects of light pollution.

A simple streetlight hack could protect astronomy from urban light pollution : Read more

 

[Classical Motion]

How are you going to blink all the city leds at the same time?

 

[billslugg]

They will have a GPS in each light fixture that will provide timing data so the lights are off during the times the telescope shutter is open. Current GPS chip available at $12 in quantity.

 

[Classical Motion]

I believe that would be more difficult than thought.

 

[billslugg]

They are not proposing a wide scale retrofit, this would be very expensive. The article says they will address only the lighting on observatory grounds or in the immediate vicinity.

 

[Classical Motion]

If there was a demand, I'm sure they could stamp out a GPS switch for under a buck. But there more to it than that. There are many methods of switching, and now dimming and controlling leds. And even though the blink is too fast to see. There will still be a dimming when the switch is deployed. Most won't be effected, but others will be. And the switch will cause problems for some control methods.

The installation time and cost will far out weigh the GPS cost.

If one is sure they want this solution......then put the GPS right in the led at manufacture. Then it might be worth it. Or at least commonly applicable.

 

[ericptak]

I have concerns on how the blinking lights would affect people with epilepsy. Our son has it, and blinking lights trigger seizures.

 

[Stuart21]

I believe that would be more difficult than thought.

The main problem is poorly mounted lights - such that light is emitted above the horizontal good shades & good mounting (w help of a spirit level - prob solved -

 

[Astrofriend]

I wrote about this idea on my homepage 8 years ago:

Astronomy projects, Fight Light Pollution

Astronomy projects, Fight Light Pollution

www.astrofriend.eu

To controll a bigger area it will cost a lot of money to install.

Lars

 

[ProfessionalDisaster]

I have concerns about the flickering as well. I can only see some older LEDs flickering, but many more can trigger migraines for me and others even though the blink rate may be consciously "imperceptible to the eye". I get the same thing from flickering fluorescent lighting, and even some of the "flame" bulbs. Night driving is bad enough with the LED headlight issue.

 

[kb-]

A fix to lights 200 km all around observatories, that would not help the wildlife and common people with the light pollution issue Good luck with that!
It's best to reduce hours and add reflectors

 

[Ollie802]

We could also drop the obsession with white LEDs this makes it difficult to filter their spectrum. Old sodium lights have a specific spectra that can be filtered out easily.

 

[billslugg]

Sodium lights were less efficient than LEDs are. What they have is a "narrow band" LED, amber color, they use around observatories. They have a color rendition problem, though.

 

[Classical Motion]

We need a black and white LED. You turn it on and everything goes black and white, like an old TV set.