Posted by defrost 1 day ago
If the beams were the right brightness and pointed downwards, we wouldn't be having this issue.
I have found this not to be the case. They seem to last several years, but not an amazing period of time. Also, the ones that were installed in my home are quite expensive, something like $45 per can (the whole thing must be replaced), and the price to install is $30 per can because the company changed their plug design in the last 5 years. So I end up spending $75 for each light, which is roughly $10 per year per light (per light-year?). That doesn't strike me as a great value, especially because I can't change the lights myself due to the wiring/plug situation. Maybe that piece won't apply in future years, but it's still a lot even if it's just $45 for the darn can.
The fixtures last forever, and may have already been there for half a century. It doesn't need changed.
The bulb lasts as long as it lasts, but is easily replaced. It can be dumb, or it can be smart. It can be changed for different color temperature or CRI or protocol or efficiency rating or whatever.
We've put some smart LED bulbs into some fixtures, and those have been fine. But they've only been in for a few years, so we don't yet know their lifespan.
On the other hand, I have more than a dozen LED lamps that have been continuously used for more than ten years and none of them has failed yet. They are mounted in classic Edison fixtures for incandescent lamps and they were made by Philips, but at the time when they were bought they were one of their better models, and having a 4000 K color temperature, i.e. very slightly yellowish, but not noticeably yellow, like the lamps with a color temperature less than 3000 K, which try to imitate incandescent lamps.
Medawisla
https://www.outdoors.org/destinations/maine/medawisla-lodge/
And it's usually recognized that 1,000hz is the bare minimum to spare sensitive individuals from symptoms, with 2,500 usually used for safety margin. Then you have to account for some jitter in the synchronized network so you're looking at at best a 1/5,000 exposure.
Is that sufficient to be worth the trouble?
Regardless, I agree with your larger point that the proposed system would be entirely impractical!
But then you can get capacitors or inductors emitting a very annoying 10 kHz whine. There are higher end LEDs for various commercial uses that use PWM at over 20 kHz to avoid that.
I was disappointed that the article didn't mention this, especially because they did mention sodium, but only as a pretty color.
We started in Tekapo (https://www.darkskyproject.co.nz/) which being rural with a very low population density, and mountainous and with existing observatories to protect
In recent years the effort has moved into the cities (https://www.dunedin.govt.nz/council/policies,-plans-and-stra...)
Interestingly people who live on hills, overlooking the suburbs, complain the lovely view of the sparkling streets was going dark!
But not only does it preserve the stars it is much cheaper, so not going back
Point is: this can be done and the nighttime rewards and financial rewards make it worthwhile
However, I live in a built-up urban area, and my home is absurdly light-polluted. Like, you wouldn't believe it! The parking lot here is ringed with flood lamps that are aimed into our windows. So every hundred feet or so, there is a bright-as-the-Sun lamp in my face, and with a clear view, I can spot about five of them.
So from my balcony, my only hope to get some darkness for the camera is to get into shadows. The railings provide a band of shadows that I can use to block the floods from getting on my lens. So if I position the camera juuust right, it kinda feels darker than it is, and I've got to say I've captured some impressive starfields, down to magnitude 9 or dimmer, including bodies such as Uranus and 4 Vesta.
I also found that the ballcourts in the rear of my property provide this unique "cave" situation with lots of shadows where I can capture the sky directly overhead, and to the west. This is how I photographed the last lunar eclipse.
Now that's my view to the west and 225° (due southwest). If I go on the other side of the property to look east, I've got the same crazy situation with flood lamps, but there's basically no way to hide in shadows. I literally cannot photograph anything rising in the east if it is dimmer than the Moon.
So really, my astronomy hobby mostly consists of doing some great editing, curation, identification, and mostly simulation from the comfort of the air-conditioned indoors. I enjoy what sightings I can while outdoors, and that's included some meteors, the ISS, Tiangong, and a few Vandenberg launches. We're still hanging in there!