Street Lighting - Council responds

This is what I had back - bugger !


RESPONSE
Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding street light at rear of your
property. Unfortunately I am unable to exceed to your request, the lamp in
question is designed to comply to BS.5489 standards which is specifically
designed to illuminate the highway. The type of lamp is high pressure
sodium (son) which affords less light pollution than the low pressure sodium
(sox) type of lantern, if the light source was shielded it would not comply
to the BS standards.
/RESPONSE


CandT

"CandT" wrote in message
...
This is what I had back - bugger !


RESPONSE
The type of lamp is high pressure
sodium (son) which affords less light pollution than the low pressure sodium
(sox) type of lantern, if the light source was shielded it would not comply
to the BS standards.
/RESPONSE

I thought high pressure sodium was a wide spectrum source. Low pressure sodium
is more or less limited to the pair of "D" lines.

--
M Stewart
Milton Keynes, UK
www.megalith.freeserve.co.uk/oddimage.htm
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ms1938/

On Fri, 26 Mar 2004 09:52:15 -0000, "Malcolm Stewart"
wrote:

"CandT" wrote in message
.. .
This is what I had back - bugger !


RESPONSE
The type of lamp is high pressure
sodium (son) which affords less light pollution than the low pressure sodium
(sox) type of lantern, if the light source was shielded it would not comply
to the BS standards.
/RESPONSE

I thought high pressure sodium was a wide spectrum source. Low pressure sodium
is more or less limited to the pair of "D" lines.

Yep - having done a bit of reading - thats what I found too - so here's my reply
:

REPLY
Thanks for the reply, but having read around the subject, I am not sure that
high pressure sodium offers less polution. Low pressure sodium is monochromatic,
so the light emissions are in specific bands, which can then be filtered out
quite successfully. High pressure sodium, from what I understand, has a much
wider spectrum, so will bypass filtering attempts.

I was hoping for shielding to just be applied to obscure the light into my rear
garden, which is the OTHER side of the highway from the lamp. It should be
possible to place a shield which will in no way reduce illumination onto the
road below, but would cut out a large amount of light into the garden.

Kind regards,

/REPLY

CandT

I was hoping for shielding to just be applied to obscure the light
into my rear garden, which is the OTHER side of the highway from the
lamp. It should be possible to place a shield which will in no way
reduce illumination onto the road below, but would cut out a large
amount of light into the garden.



In the past, there have been quite a few suggestions on some of the
newsgroups that it is possible to get streetlights shielded by the local
autorities. On reflection, I think most of these have been in the USA. Has
anyone had success in getting their local council in the UK to shield
streetlighting?


DaveL

Dave wrote:
Has anyone had success in getting their local council in the UK to
shield streetlighting?

Yes. (when I lived in East Dorset District Council -- but then, that is
the local council of Bob Mizon as well)

Best,
Stephen

Remove footfrommouth to reply

--
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+ Stephen Tonkin | ATM Resources; Astro-Tutorials; Astro Books +
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"Stephen Tonkin" wrote in message
...
Dave wrote:
Has anyone had success in getting their local council in the UK to
shield streetlighting?

Yes. (when I lived in East Dorset District Council -- but then, that is
the local council of Bob Mizon as well)

Best,
Stephen

Remove footfrommouth to reply

--
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+ Stephen Tonkin | ATM Resources; Astro-Tutorials; Astro Books +
+ (N51.162 E0.995) | http://astunit.com +
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

And therein lies the solution...

Find your local MP or other semi-powerful council bod and invite them to
view the night sky through your scopes. Once in a light pollution free area,
if there is such a thing and once in the local area. Ply with food and
alcohol and promise that they will "have your support in the coming
elections."

Cheers,
Jim

"Dave" wrote in message ...

In the past, there have been quite a few suggestions on some of the
newsgroups that it is possible to get streetlights shielded by the local
autorities. Has anyone had success in getting their local council in the UK to shield streetlighting?

Yes thanks. 18 years ago. The strict & stated proviso was that a
bedroom window was being shielded from extraneous light. It didn't
help the observing very much as the garden was beside the house & not
in front. But it was an interesting exercise in persuasion. After that
bit of practice I want on to bring peace on earth and goodwill to all
men, harmonisation in Europe etc.etc. ;^)

Chris.B

In message , Dave
writes

I was hoping for shielding to just be applied to obscure the light
into my rear garden, which is the OTHER side of the highway from the
lamp. It should be possible to place a shield which will in no way
reduce illumination onto the road below, but would cut out a large
amount of light into the garden.

In the past, there have been quite a few suggestions on some of the
newsgroups that it is possible to get streetlights shielded by the local
autorities. On reflection, I think most of these have been in the USA. Has
anyone had success in getting their local council in the UK to shield
streetlighting?

Yes. You have to ask nicely and be persuasive to succeed. And sometimes
creative - you are much more likely to win with an argument that you
cannot sleep because of the light shining in at your windows.

Sending a photograph of the offending lamp in action taken through your
telescope can be quite an effective way to get the attention of an
astronomer friendly lighting engineer.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown

In message , CandT
writes
On Fri, 26 Mar 2004 09:52:15 -0000, "Malcolm Stewart"
wrote:

"CandT" wrote in message
. ..
This is what I had back - bugger !


RESPONSE
The type of lamp is high pressure
sodium (son) which affords less light pollution than the low pressure sodium
(sox) type of lantern, if the light source was shielded it would not comply
to the BS standards.
/RESPONSE

I thought high pressure sodium was a wide spectrum source. Low pressure sodium
is more or less limited to the pair of "D" lines.

Yep - having done a bit of reading - thats what I found too - so here's
my reply
:

REPLY
Thanks for the reply, but having read around the subject, I am not sure that
high pressure sodium offers less polution. Low pressure sodium is
monochromatic,
so the light emissions are in specific bands, which can then be filtered out
quite successfully. High pressure sodium, from what I understand, has a much
wider spectrum, so will bypass filtering attempts.

Unfortunately this point was largely ignored by the Light Pollution
committee. And the fact that at least 10% is reflected back off the
ground even if the lamp fittings are perfect full cut off was ignored
entirely.

HPS is broadband peachy white and all but impossible to filter.

They chose to focus on the better directional control of HPS and ignored
all the factors that favour of nearly monochromatic LPS. There is
nothing stops LPS being housed in full cutoff luminaires they are common
on mainland Europe. UK doesn't do it out of sheer laziness.

I was hoping for shielding to just be applied to obscure the light into my rear
garden, which is the OTHER side of the highway from the lamp. It should be
possible to place a shield which will in no way reduce illumination onto the
road below, but would cut out a large amount of light into the garden.

Although it should be possible. This is the geometry that they cannot be
bothered to deal with. If the lamp was on the same side as your house
they have a standard shield that goes between the lamp and the stalk.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown

In message , CandT
writes
This is what I had back - bugger !


RESPONSE
Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding street light at rear of your
property. Unfortunately I am unable to exceed to your request, the lamp in
question is designed to comply to BS.5489 standards which is specifically
designed to illuminate the highway. The type of lamp is high pressure
sodium (son) which affords less light pollution than the low pressure sodium
(sox) type of lantern, if the light source was shielded it would not comply
to the BS standards.
/RESPONSE


CandT

This sounds like the standard brush-off, but the secret of success is
patience.
You may like to reply to them that, as Bs.5489 costs 544 pounds, it is
unreasonable to expect you to have a copy to read. However as they
obviously have a copy themselves, could you view it at their offices, as
you (I) don't believe it defines restrictions to shielding.

Also it may pay them to consider their position with regard to light
pollution, in view of the increased press coverage and government
interest that the subject is currently enjoying.

I don't wish to put words in anyones mouth, put I've found that
something along the above lines got a more considered and helpful
response.
;-)

Denis
--
DT
Replace nospam with the antithesis of hills