We're Squandering LEDs' Potential to Save Our Night Skies

Re:We're Squandering LEDs' Potential to Save Our Night Skies by michael1999 on Monday July 20, 2026 @10:39AM (#48979527)

We need much better engineering standards if we are going to fix night lighting. A simplistic lux-on-the-ground measure combined with cost minimization produces a few lights, with bare bulbs, up hight, with brutal intensity. These are all things that produce glare directly on the eyeball.

You need much less light on the ground if the eyeball itself has no direct line to the hottest part of the lights. Instead, the night-blindness caused by excessive bare lighting is "fixed" by adding more fill lights for the shadows caused by the first lights. Classic addictive behaviour.

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Re:We're Squandering LEDs' Potential to Save Our Night Skies by projektfu on Monday July 20, 2026 @03:51PM (#48983992)

I believe that is what TFA is about.

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Re:We're Squandering LEDs' Potential to Save Our Night Skies by michael1999 on Tuesday July 21, 2026 @10:16AM (#48992674)

ctrl-F "standards" - zero results.

The fine article was more about the effects of bad lighting, and the motivation to change. It does not discuss the engineering and insurance standards that generate the bad choices. Perhaps you misread my comment. As long as the standards are left as-is, street engineers are going to keep doing as they are.

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