{"id":648,"date":"2013-12-30T15:28:43","date_gmt":"2013-12-30T21:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/night-scenes.com\/?p=648"},"modified":"2013-12-30T15:28:43","modified_gmt":"2013-12-30T21:28:43","slug":"not-as-bright-as-the-austin-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/night-scenes.com\/2013\/12\/30\/not-as-bright-as-the-austin-lights\/","title":{"rendered":"Not As Bright As The Austin Lights"},"content":{"rendered":"
The heart of Texas is big and bright, but the city lights are not necessarily the best thing about Austin.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love the Austin area and used to live there myself.\u00a0 Now I live about 50 miles northwest of Austin in Kingsland, near Horseshoe Bay in the hill country.\u00a0 Out here in Llano County, we are blessed with a beautiful dark sky at night and get to enjoy the stars which are quite nice indeed.<\/p>\n
So, you might be asking, why would an outdoor lighting guy complain about too much light?\u00a0 The answer is quite simple really.\u00a0 I love good lighting, but I love responsible outdoor lighting even more.\u00a0 Most people tend to think that brighter is better.\u00a0 In my business I often see places where a 250 watt light fixture is used to illuminate a tree where I would more likely use a 12 watt LED fixture to do the same thing.\u00a0 Would my lighting be as bright<\/a>?\u00a0 Probably not; but the tree would actually look just as good \u2013 or better – since it would not be such a garish over-kill of unnecessary lumens.<\/p>\n <\/a>We are members of the International Dark Sky Association<\/a> because, at NightScenes, we believe that helping to protect our dark skies, as well as our environment, is part of our responsibility to the earth and her residents.\u00a0 By lowering the lumen output of fixtures used in outdoor lighting, we diminish the amount of sky glow that is created.\u00a0 When we cut back on the wattage of the fixtures we use by converting to more efficient LED lighting, we save energy which reduces the need for fossil fuels.<\/p>\n Residential and commercial landscape lighting doesn\u2019t actually contribute much to sky glow or light pollution, especially when it\u2019s done with the night sky in mind.\u00a0 We don\u2019t use high wattage, high lumen output fixtures in our outdoor lighting designs.\u00a0 Our outdoor lighting design philosophy is \u201cless is more.\u201d\u00a0 Our designs use lights strategically and efficiently instead of just blasting as many lumens as we can at an object or in a particular area.<\/p>\n We all need to understand that a little bit of light in the darkness goes a long way.\u00a0 Think about how far away you can see a car\u2019s headlights.\u00a0 Consider the distance from which you can see a reflector along the highway, which is shining light back at you.\u00a0 Ponder how far away the moon is and how much light you get from it when it\u2019s reflecting the light from the sun.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you think you could easily see that sign along the road at night even if it had half as much light on it?\u00a0 Don\u2019t you think you could see it just as well if the lights were shining down on it instead of up on it?\u00a0 Those two things alone would make an incredible impact on the night sky around Austin \u2013 and everywhere.<\/p>\n That\u2019s my take on Austin and some of the city lights we all run into from time to time.\u00a0 To truly appreciate the stars at night, sometimes it\u2019s good to step away from the bright lights and big energy consumption we see in metropolitan areas. I\u2019d like to encourage everyone to use less light and less energy, and maybe you\u2019ll have a better look at those stars where you live.\u00a0 You might even see better without those bright lights in your eyes!<\/p>\n