12 Light pollution and the night sky
STAR QUALITY New lighting technologies and practices are contributing to a welcome reduction in night-time skyglow. But creating ‘star quality’ lighting still comes back to the basics of good design and application, emphasise Howard Lawrence and Bob Mizon of the British Astronomical Association Commission for Dark Skies
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iven the ILP’s international standing, Lighting Journal is always a good starting point for anyone wanting to take the temperature of the industry. For example, as far back as the June/July 1995 edition, the Journal was setting a milestone along the road towards well-directed and more environmentally sensitive luminaires. The first double-page spread of that edition was an advertisement for a major lighting company. Against a photograph of a star-strewn night sky, the company praised a local council for choosing its flat-glass road lights. It also highlighted that the British Astronomical Association’s (BAA) Good Lighting Award had been presented to that council for ‘protecting the night sky with its pollution-free road lighting scheme... directed evenly onto the road below, and none invading the sky above’. Such advertisements were soon to become quite common, with lighting companies increasingly promoting the benefits of their products in the context of combatting light pollution and promoting ‘sky-friendly’ products. In the same edition, the leading article was entitled Social Factors Behind the Development of Outdoor Lighting by Mike Simpson, then President of the Institution of Lighting Engineers, as the ILP was in those days. Mike reviewed the history and benefits of outdoor lighting,
writing with less enthusiasm about the ‘amorphous yellow glow... spreading across the countryside... and never mind the spill or quality’. In his opinion, a ‘metamorphism’ had been occurring within the industry during the early 1990s. arguing that: ‘We were learning that outdoor lighting is more than just filling the space with light; learning that it is more than just a way of making our roads visible to motorists; learning that sensitivity in design is equally as important outdoors as it is indoors; and learning to take care of our environment. ‘The environmentalists are concerned about the impact the equipment has on the landscape whether by day or night. In addition we have the astronomers, who are concerned about the amount of artificial light which is scattered in the atmosphere... The astronomical lobby has been particularly effective in persuading us that direct upward light must be reduced...’. He concluded with the observation that ‘the road lighting community has responded well to environmental pressure’. What this all serves to highlight is the sea-change in thinking around lighting and light pollution that occurred during the late 1990s, and which continues to the present day. This was a change driven by a range of factors: competition, environmentally-aware voices within the industry,
A photograph of the UK from the International Space Station by Tim Peake. The Aurora Borealis is clear, but it is a pity that so few of us will see it due to skyglow
Lighting Journal September 2016