“Not only will you attract more potential buyers and get a quicker sale (not to mention being the envy of your neighbours) you’ll probably get a welcome boost in your sale price. Spending 5% of the value of your home on landscaping, and you might get back as much as 150% of your money back. If your landscaping is on the low end for the area, bringing it up to par with your neighbours could increase the value of your property by as much as 15%. And academic studies are proving the point. One university study found that consumers valued a landscaped home up to 11.3 percent higher than its base price. Another consumer survey in Ireland found that hedges raised property value by 3.6 percent, a landscaped kerb by 4% and a landscaped patio by a staggering 12.4%” – Article Source

Buying a home is an investment. As such, with any investment, one wishes to achieve the maximum return value on that investment. Our last DIY topic lauded the value of energy efficient, shielded outdoor lamps and the ‘ambiance’ it creates. This particular DIY article will focus more on larger outdoor lights found on homes. Have any outdoor lights barely hanging on? Been meaning to update them to reflect your style? Looking for something less obstructive but more welcoming? Take a look at the image at the beginning of the article. It possesses an old fashion yet contemporary look, it’s stylish and guess what, it’s 100% night sky friendly. Significant strides have been made in lighting technology, to provide numerous styles for demanding consumers. Rustic, classic, contemporary or a fusion of them all, Starry Night Lights delivers.

The walkway lights are fine since they’re shielded, but the glare emanating off the lights, accentuating the trees, is simply unacceptable.
Read on to find out why.
Image source – Trussum Pond Lawn Irrigation

For those of us in the North Hemisphere, Winter’s grasp loosens as Spring’s renewal blossoms. With the snow and cold weather beginning to subside, plans are certainly afoot – especially in households. All kinds of foliage will start to grow, wanted or unwanted, across yards and one will certainly want to deal with this accordingly as they see fit. If you value the ambiance lighting can add to any yard, read on.

Scenario: You’ve decided to have a BBQ party to celebrate the new weather in a few weeks. The snow has finally melted and foliage is beginning to grow once again. You diligently eradicate weeds that would otherwise ruin your motif. You check to make sure your irrigation and lighting switches are working properly. It turns out, you need to replace your lights. But here’s the thing: Do you pick up replacement light bulbs? Should you use more energy efficient light bulbs? How’s the lighting ambiance been in the past? Should I add more or remove some (pre)existing lights? All of these questions are great questions to ask.

Ideally, there would be no light. But of course, that doesn’t reflect reality. Here are some rudimentary outdoor lighting tips: For starters, shielded lighting directs the light where it is needed: downward. As a corollary, less wattage/more energy efficient light bulbs are required to light the small area. Landscape lighting, in principle, is to illuminate outdoor features at night. Certainly, one can utilize a floodlight to illuminate their entire backyard. Yet the majority of people don’t. Why is that? Ambiance. Regarding lights in outdoor spaces, the adage ‘too much of a good thing is a bad thing’ comes to mind. In addition, too much light is highly intrusive to others. If you remember these easy, helpful tips, you shouldn’t have a problem when faced with the task of ‘what is proper lighting’ and finding that balance between darkness and light.

If you’re considering procuring new lighting fixtures to retrofit your outdoor space, congratulations and welcome to the site! Starry Night Lights is a small family business dedicated to eradicating light pollution through education, superior products and customer satisfaction. Starry Night Lights offers a dedicated section to landscape lighting, with Deck lights starting at $25.90, pathway lights starting at $14.97, and recessed lights starting at $68.50.

Let there be night!

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“When you start doing that on a large-scale basis, you can run into what I call light pollution where you’ll have citizens complaining about the amount of light coming in through their windows in their homes and so forth. So what you’re trying to do here is come to a happy medium of lighting.” – Michael Stoneham, the director of Franklin Power and Light

Franklin is a small town in Virginia, a part of the tidewater district. Having a modest population of ~8,000, Franklin plans on introducing 30 new ’security’ street lights. These 30 new additional lights will compliment city street traffic lights. Mr. Stoneham states that there is a “distinction between street lighting, which is what the city provides to help drivers and pedestrians navigate streets and sidewalks, and security lighting.” Mr. Stoneham claims lights will stand no further than 600 feet nor less than 300 feet apart. According to Franklin residents, this plan is a long time coming.

I’m not quite sure what Mr. Stoneham means by a happy medium of lighting. Do these new light fixtures possess shielded qualities? What kind of light lamp do they use and are they energy efficient? Will they possess motion sensors? How much will these cost? Granted, these questions may of been asked and answered already, but these are the kinds of questions you as citizens should ask. Are we to gather from the opening quote that there will be light pollution, just not too much? The technology and the science of today allow to eradicate light pollution 100% – to be fair, we could of done that years ago. Citizens no longer have to have a light pollution trade off – this isn’t the seventies anymore.

In the quiet of the night, Pearson International reduces lighting levels significantly.
SUPPLIED PICTURE

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“For example, in the service level of Terminal 1, a pretty large area (for staff), we have achieved a 75 per cent lighting reduction between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m and between Midnight and 5 a.m. in the Terminal 1 baggage claim area we have about a 40 per cent lighting reduction. If you’re in Terminal 1 after 12:30 or so you will see a lot of lighting turned off.”
“We’ve been involved with Earth Hour since the beginning, in 2008; a direct result of that involvement was the decision to turn off 50 per cent of the fluorescent lighting inside Terminal 1, permanently. We essentially turned off two of the four lamps in every light — no one has even noticed. Thanks to Earth Hour, when you drive up to Terminal 1 on the departure level, the architectural lights to light up the front of the terminal, we shut them all off, permanently.” – Craig Rock, the Greater Toronto Airport Authority’s manager of energy management

“Fact: With no artificial light pollution the human eye can see about 3,500 stars in the night sky. But with the light pollution in Toronto, the number of visible stars dwindles to a few dozen.”

International airports operate 24/7 to cater to inbound and outbound flights. Obviously, airports cater to more travelers during the day time. As such, it dawned on Craig Rock, that perhaps he and his team could reduce the airport’s energy footprint. Aside from the lighting reduction strategies mentioned above, Mr. Rock has implemented escalator motion sensors as well as heating and cooling standby modes. Mr. Rock’s commitment to implementing energy efficient methods should be lauded. Why use electricity when no one is around to actually use it? Furthermore, even if the building you manage doesn’t possess all of the most energy efficient lighting solutions, there’s still no excuse for excess energy. There are alternative methods to ensure maximum efficiency, even if your equipment isn’t efficient. As Mr. Rock put it, “We’ve been learning how to use the building correctly.”

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“The park, home to breathtaking sandstone canyons, strange rock formations and dramatic natural bridge, has one of the darkest and clearest night skies in the US making it possible to see in amazing clarity the Milky Way galaxy and millions of stars and planets.”

“During the summer months, the park has a team of nocturnal rangers – affectionately known as ‘Dark Rangers’ – who are specially trained in astronomy and on hand to advise on star gazing opportunities and educate the public about light pollution and how they can make a difference.”

“Many park visitors are astounded when they first see the Milky Way under a dark sky. It isn’t just a faint smudge in the sky, but a bright, intricate river of light which is almost three dimensional.” -  One of the park’s ‘Dark Rangers’

Natural Bridges National Park in Utah, “accredited as the world’s first designated ‘International Dark Sky Park’ by the International Dark Sky Association”, offers some of the most spectacular starry nights in the United States of America. For those that haven’t been, I would highly recommend a visit out there. The park itself offers astonishing day and night time landscape views. The National Park proudly boasts the prestigious title of International Dark Sky Park and boy, do they make every effort to maintain such a title.  Shielded lighting, energy efficient light bulbs, you name it. I must confess, I do caution visitors that your experience may indeed sadden you, for once you return to your respected homes, you may realize something is ‘missing.’ Light pollution is one of the many environmental scourges of modernity. Even though its effects are 100% irreversible, it hasn’t garnered much attention from city planners. If you’re reading this blog post, you at least have some interest in the night sky. You’d be surprised at how a small impact can bring about ubiquitous change. Advocate for dark skies in your community and let your voice be heard.

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“This will be the largest scale introduction of this type of street lighting technology ever seen in Britain and meets with our aim to make Surrey one of the best places in the world to live.” – Dr Andrew Pove, Surrey County Council leader

“The new energy efficient technology is expected to save more than 60,000 tons of carbon emissions over the next 25 years. It is also set to save Surrey taxpayers at least £12 million over the same period due to lower energy bills and a better contract deal. There will also be a reduction in light pollution because the new lights direct their beam downwards. The individual lights can be remotely controlled from a control centre in Merrow, Guildford. At present, Surrey’s street lights are programmed to come on and go off at set times in the day, with little opportunity to make energy savings. But under the new system, lighting will be increased most where it is needed and reduced where it is not.

Congratulations Surry!

Thanks to a “Private Finance Initiative grant worth £73.9 million from central government”, construction has begun to replace Surry’s 89,000 old streetlights with new environmentally sound lighting solutions. The old Orange light high pressurized sodium lights are being replaced by shielded, remotely controlled lights a part of an electronic grid that notifies technicians if a light needs replacement. The entire construction process will take five years to upgrade the preexisting lights, 70,000 of which will be replaced, whereas 19,000 will be refurbished. Public investment into programmes such as this one, allow future generations to see untainted skies as well as increased energy savings. Whilst the initial upfront cost may deter weary adopters, it’s a long-term investment for the future with substantial monetary savings. An added boon of this lighting overhaul programme lies in the increased standard of living. How? The city becomes marketable as a ‘dark-sky’ city, where tourists and residents reap the benefits of pristine night skies. Whilst it may not seem most people care about the night sky, I guarantee that if you show someone a pristine night sky, they’ll remember it. Perhaps they’ll even yearn for it again. Nonetheless, Starry Night Lights wishes to once again congratulate Surry on securing funding to retrofit all their ever increasing anachronistic lighting solutions.

Image Credit

“Penny pinching and energy saving are both extremely fashionable at the moment, and when the two areas collide you can be sure there’ll be some political reaction, which is why street lighting has come under government review recently.”

Article source

“These unusual looking bits of street furniture will apparently adapt to the environment as they mimic the behaviour of a flower by opening and closing to gather energy. By collecting energy from the sun and wind, the Sustainable City Lights are self powering, but also possess the ability to give back to the grid if it overproduces to help feed other items draining power. They’re also far more energy efficient than regular lights as they use LEDs.

More importantly, however, they have the intelligence to turn down the wick when they are not needed, thanks to proximity sensors that will only activate when a person comes suitably close to require the lighting. This not only makes them more energy efficient, but also reduces light pollution — something the BAA will no doubt strongly approve of.”

Philips has the right idea: energy efficient, self-powering lighting solutions with proximity sensors. Whilst I find the overall concept neat, I fear these lights may give off the same amount of glare found in ‘unshielded’ lighting solutions. Shielding is a very important aspect of any lighting solution. Shielding directs and concentrates the light downward instead of upward. One could have the most energy efficient and high lumen bulb on the planet, but it’s worthless without proper shielding. In essence, shielding is the most important component in reducing light pollution. Perhaps I’m jumping the gun on this concept sketch, but the far right photo worries me. Hopefully, this concept will come to light with 100% shielding and our towns, cities and metropolises will reap the benefits.

Image credit
“When you look up into the night sky, are you dazzled by the sight of twinkling stars or can you simply see a hazy orange glow?”

Source

“The classic test is Orion. If you look at the belt of Orion, you should be able to see all 30 stars with the naked eye, and if it’s much less then there’s too much light pollution.

Modern street lighting shines upwards, directly into the skies, which pollutes the clarity. If councils used capped lights that are focussed[sic] on the ground, as they’ve started to do in America, we’d be able to start recovering our dark skies. We can turn off orange streetlights more, too. In built-up areas like Shrewsbury, where there’s a lot of nightlife, it would be impractical to switch them off for safety reasons, but there are other areas where we could switch them off after midnight.” – Andy Boddington, Dark Sky Twitter Advocate @AndyBodders and @DarkSkies2010

According to twitter user Andy Boddington, light pollution awareness is starting to pick up momentum. He has personally made light pollution awareness his mission and believes in celebrating what the night sky has to offer. He organized an event to celebrate dark skies last month, where participants would endure the cold of winter to see some spectacular starry night skies. Much to the surprise of Mr. Boddington, he found out that many of the participants or readers have “confessed they’d never seen the Milky Way.” Mr. Boddington plans on organizing another event during the month of March during the Spring Solstice because there is very little moon light. In addition, this event will offer streaming content his website including “a live Twitter stream, articles on dark skies in the Georgian era, and theme music from an indie rock band.”

Mr. Boddington is correct that increased awareness of light pollution can lead to solutions. Shielded lighting allows homes, cities and metropolises to direct light where it is needed: downward. Starry Night Lights offers a wide array of lighting solutions to fulfill your needs. Remember: keep the light downward and happy stargazing!

The brightest asteroid Vesta reaches opposition this week right next to the beautiful double star Algieba. Credit: Starry Night® Software

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“Vesta is the second largest asteroid, after Ceres, and by far the brightest, having a greater albedo (percentage of light reflected) than any other asteroid. This seems to be partly the result of a collision with another asteroid about a billion years ago. Its mean diameter is 329 miles (529 km), but it is rather irregular in shape because of its violent history.

This week Vesta will be traveling rapidly through Leo. It will be around magnitude 6.2, bright enough to be easily visible in binoculars. However, because of its small diameter and distance, it will appear as a star-like point of light except in the very largest telescopes.”

Pull out the binoculars for the next week!

Asteroid Vesta will reach peak opposition (optimal viewing time) in the constellation Leo tonight and remain visible for a week. Given its magnitude, viewers will be able to see the asteroid with the aid of binoculars in more light polluted skies. For those fortunate enough to have dark skies, the asteroid could very be seen with just the naked eye. Specifically, viewers can spot Vesta in the Leo constellation, about six degrees north-east, in the low eastern sky. Here is a animation and an additional picture to help you find Leo the Lion constellation:

Animation and Image source: admin from zodiac-signs.org

If you miss out on this event, fear not. Vesta makes a rather semi regular appearance roughly every 17 months.

Image source: Astronomy.com

‘Light Pollution‘
Uploaded on January 27, 2008
by Cestomano on flickr

Article source

“Most people in urban areas have never seen the Milky Way. I had a jaw-dropping event with one of my classes. I had a woman come up to me after the classes and say ‘Would you show my daughter a star?’” – James Roe of Wentzville, the head of the Alliance for Astronomy, who teaches a class in observing at St. Charles Community College.

Enter Missouri. A state with a modest population of 5 million. As time as passed, some of its residents have begin to wonder if they’re losing a significant natural resource. The resource being dark, starry nights. Naturally, these residents have gone forward to the legislature to take action. As of now, the legislature has gone forward to the Department of Natural Resources, where it will convene and form a special commission “to study the impact of Light Pollution”>light pollution on public health, energy consumption, tourism, natural resources, and wildlife.” This is terrific news for dark sky enthusiasts in Missouri and the world. Each small step towards public education in light pollution, is one step closer to understanding and eliminating light pollution.

People do seek darkness at night. In fact:

“A spokesman for the International Dark Skies Association says people apparently seek darkness. He points to a Pennsylvania state park with a dark skies designation where attendance has increased 30 percent in three years.”

Together, we can put an end to light pollution!