For the past few weeks, I've been looking into the outdoor lights in my neighborhood. The lights on my street are quite terrible - they leak a lot of light, are unnecessarily bright, and also look quite old fashioned 😂.
My Neighborhood:
The light outside my house is the most annoying - its bright light makes it impossible to see any stars during the night.
Look at how bright that light is! I took this picture when it was late at night too and the sky looks a lot brighter than it should be. Also, the light looks like a bright sphere, so there isn't any shielding from the light leaking to the night sky.
Unfortunately, these kinds of lights are all over the street and make it unnecessarily bright.
But I found one light that is broken and the comparison is shocking.
Here is a picture of the broken light:
Even if one light is broken, the sky looks a lot darker!
It also might be hard to see in these pictures, but the street isn't even that dark near the broken light either. If every other street light is on, it'll definitely be bright enough to see and it'll save a lot more electricity!
Main Roads:
The lights used on the main roads in my area are also not covered and emit a lot of light. They are slightly better since they don't make the night sky as bright (see image below), and they aren't placed as frequently.
These lights are alright, but you can still see how some light is leaking up.
Best Lights Ever: Burwood:
Several minutes away from my house is a neighborhood called Burwood. From what I've heard, this neighborhood had actually decided a few years ago to remove all the main outdoor lights that they had. Now, they resort to these shorter, dimmer lights to light up their own driveways:
(Some of the light on the street is due to the car I was in while taking these pictures.)
The road is certainly bright enough for driving and just look at how dark the sky is! It was so cool to be in this neighborhood because I could see so many stars.
Some places in this neighborhood have no lights at all! I wonder how the legislation to remove the lights here was passed. This is a great example and already you can see big differences in how well you can see the sky!
In the future, I'll post more observations since if these kinds of changes are capable in one neighborhood, then they can be extended to most neighborhoods in my community. Thanks for reading!
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