Dark skies lighting and bat friendly lighting
Too often, outdoor lighting installations at night are over lit, create stray light pollution and are harmful to the general environment. Light pollution is a growing global issue negatively affecting our world and impacting quality of life. Through proper understanding of the factors and causes of light pollution, and choosing the right type of lighting, light pollution can be dramatically reduced. This concept is general termed dark skies lighting. Bat friendly lighting fixtures and bat friendly lighting designs should also be chosen where bats are present. It is important control direct and indirect upward light, but the colour of the light is also very important. LED and metal halide fixtures typically contain much of blue light in their output spectrum. Blue light brightens the night sky more than any other colour of light. Exposure to blue light at night can harm human health and wildlife. A lower colour temperature of light ( less than 3000K) is referred to as ‘warm light’ and can reduce this negative effect In some areas where bats and other wildlife are present, the white light of even a warm temperature LED light can be a threat to the local night environment. In these cases, specific narrow-spectrum orange LEDs are chosen.