Here we are on Earth Day once again and it brings to mind our commitment to providing great outdoor lighting while also being aware of our dark skies and the beauty of the stars.
Have you seen the commercial on TV lately that says the human eye can see a single candle from 10 miles away? Would you be surprised to know that the human eye can actually see a single candle from as far as 30 miles away? Of course, it must be a very dark and clear sky and the Earth would have to be flat, but the light of a single candle can be seen from that far away. Why then do we feel that we need to use so much light for so many things?
We understand task lighting must be bright enough for us to safely and efficiently handle the task at hand. If you’re talking about surgery, I’m betting you’ll need a lot of light and, by golly, let’s make sure you have it. But if you’re talking about landscape lighting, let’s tone it back, shall we?
Here in the Austin and the Highland Lakes areas of central Texas we are blessed with an abundance of majestic live oak trees, red oaks, Spanish oaks, and even tall palm trees. I see these trees illuminated all the time with HID (high intensity discharge) lighting, sometimes using 450 watts or more. Why? Does that tree really need to be seen from the surface of the moon? Does it need to be seen from the next town over? Of course not! Generally, it only needs to be viewed from your own yard, or nearby. We might use 14 watt LED fixtures to illuminate the very largest trees in our area — which is about the same lumen output of a 50 watt halogen light. We will probably need more than one of these fixtures to do the job, but we won’t go any brighter, which means lumen output stays the same.
An often overlooked and critical element to protecting the night sky is proper aiming of the fixtures. I don’t know how many times I walk onto properties where the extremely bright fixtures are aimed at NOTHING. That’s right, they are just pointed up into space because whatever they were supposed to illuminate has been moved, or the light is just so far off of its intended target it’s not even hitting it. Another offender is flags that are over-illuminated with very wide, high lumen output fixtures. The beam spread should be narrower to illuminate the flag only, so lumen output can be cut back because it is more focused light.
These are just a few examples of how properly designed outdoor lighting can help us cut back on light pollution and still accent the things that we love at night. It’s Earth Day so let’s take a moment to think about what we can all do to help our planet and its atmosphere. Here at NightScenes, we’ll do our best to create safe and beautiful outdoor spaces when the sun sets, while also protecting our view of the fabulous night time sky.
Are you in the greater Austin, Texas area? We would love to evaluate your lighting to see if we can make it more environmentally friendly and more beautiful at the same time. Contact us here
