"Pete Keillor" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 02:37:03 -0400, John
wrote:

Existential Angst wrote:
Awl --

Inyone know?

The bulbs themselves come anywhere from 50W to 250W, proly more.. I
spose I
could climb up and ampprobe a wire real quick, before the police
arrive....


Sodium puts out about 6x the lumens per watt of an incandescant.

I'm asking because I have to illuminate some dark areas around Le Hovel,
from my property, and want it to resemble the existing (or in this case,
non-existing) street lighting, at about the same brightness.

I called my town's light peeple, but DATS a shot in the, uh, dark,
bleeve
me....

These are like NYC street lites, the tall pole, with about a 6' arm
coming
out, edison-like base.
Not the decorative type lites, that are just vertical.



Sodium vapor lamps are about the most efficient ones available but they
have an orange glow to them that the halide ones do not, making the
sodium lamps ok for outdoor illumination but not that good for work
lighting. There are standard formulas for the wattage needed for the
area to be lit up. you should be able to find them on the internet.
Search architectural lighting.

John

You might look at this site before you buy something. Guidelines to
better illumination where you need it and less light pollution.
http://www.darksky.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=118983

About 1 mile from me are examples of two extremes. One is a new
subdivision going in with well lit streets and good choices for
fixtures. I can't see it at all from my location. The other is a new
RV parking lot with 10 sodium lights aimed at the horizon. That
turkey gives me a god-awful orange glow to the west. He'd have saved
money on initial purchase, energy usage, and not caused a bunch of
light pollution with a better fixture.

I agree. There are at least two kinds: environmental and
neighbor-to-neighbor (direct glare).
The first:
Ahm no ornithologist, but there are areas around me with so many goddamm
night-time lights, the g-d birds chirp *like crazy* at 2 A.M. -- I'm sure
they don't have a circadian clue as to what time it is.

The second:
NJ had some all-night tennis courts lit up, on their side of the hudson,
across from the oh-so precious Condos on Riverside Drive, on the Manhattan's
side of the hudson. Those lites were effing bright -- no yellowish hue on
THOSE puppies....

Wouldn't you know, this turned out to be the real estate/optical brouhaha,
and took years to resolve.
Altho I have very little sympathy for effingManhattan property owners, to
the extent that there is very little left for the avg shafted mutha****a to
enjoy but a little optical and aural peace, this WAS annoying.

The oblivion of neighbors with their bare bulbs and raw glaring floods is
beyond me. I wonder if these goddamm people even bother to flush their
toilets more than once a week.....


The new LED traffic lites and brake lights drive me crazy. These effing
leds don't just penetrate the effing night, they goddamm puncture yer
retinas.... goodgawd.....
I swear to god this is some kind of conspiratorial harassment, of our very
basic senses.

In NYC subways, they've seen fit to lite up effing ****-soaked platforms
better than reading rooms in a liberry.

To me, I'd just as soon do without ALL street lighting. Carry a g-d
flashlight, make sure yer headlights are working. Proly most rural roads
are unlit at night.

BUT, Yonkers being Yonkers, a BizarroLand of Municipal Logic and the
capitol city of NYS for corruption (well, aside from Bloomberg having
bought, sold, re-bought, and re-sold NYC, upping his personal wealth by a
factor of 10), I gotta do what I gotta do, as assholes ****ting on the trees
outside my house is just too much....

Heh, and I used to like traffic lites at night..... fukn LEDs.....
--
EA



Mind you, I didn't notice this stuff nearly as much before I got a
telescope and started looking at the night sky. I can still make out
the Milky Way here, but whether I can in 20 years or not depends on
lots of folks lighting choices (and whether I'm still able).

Pete Keillor