Dark Skies Begin at Home

Recently I wrote to my city of Helotes, Texas to find out what the lighting ordinance might say about lights in my neighborhood. This all began because, in my small backyard observing area, one of the neighbor's lights shines into the back yard over my fence every night of the year. I wondered if there was any legal basis for my asking that neighbor to shield their light.

I was surprised to find out that in the summer of 2006, the city had passed a very well written ordinance requiring compliance with lighting standards that are friendly to dark skies. All new installations after that date must be in compliance - which essentially requires full shielded lights. All grandfathered lights must come into compliance by 2012.

Like most houses on my street, I had clear glass "carriage light" type fixtures at my front door and above my address marker on the front of the house. I thought that it would be interesting and perhaps important to change out my fixtures. If I was not willing to take the time and shell out the money for new fixtures, there was no hope that I could get others to begin taking this challenge seriously.

I looked through the offerings at the local Home Depot hardware store. Though they had scores of outdoor fixtures displayed on a large wall, only one seemed to meet the fully shielded requirement. I brought this to the attention of the supervisor of that section of the store and he said that their buyer would be meeting with them later in the month and that he would push for more fully shielded lights. I think that is a good idea, because by the lighting ordinance, any lighting fixtures purchased to be installed in Helotes are already required to meet the requirement of the lighting ordinance.

Next, I drove to the nearby Lowe's Hardware store. Here I found about a half dozen fully shielded lights and several others that meet the requirement if they are installed under an overhang, such as the alcove at my front door. I bought two fixtures. One, pictured at the beginning of this entry was less than $20 and is fully shielded. I think it works much better than the light I replaced for the purpose of making my address visible after dark. It does not shine any light outside my property lines.

For the replacement of the light under my front door overhang, I chose a fixture which shields horizontal light. It does not meet the requirement of full shielding above the horizontal, but with the roof above it, it meets standard and no light is transmitted above the horizontal. (This fixture could be brought into compliance with the fully shielded requirement by installing a baffle in the upper portion of the light to restrict upward light.)

My next projects to work toward dark skies will be to contact my Home Owner's Association to get the broken street light on the corner nearest my home replaced with a fully shielded light. The swimming pool lights a block away are of the old-fashoned barn light design. I will talk with the Association about those lights too.

Some new construction in the city has lighting which does not meet the lighting ordinance. Worst among these lights are "pack lights" installed on the side of the buildings which radiate very intense light horizontally. I plan to talk with the building inspector about these lights.

Maybe I will find a way to invite my neighbor over to my backyard observing site and politely mention his bright white-blue light that shines in my backyard all night every night. God give me the grace to be nice and friendly.