Quote:
Originally Posted by ahealy
Dude, screw that! I will never forget flying into Midway for the first time (during a full moon) and seeing the glowing orange grid. RIP.
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They're switching them in Austin, too, as I'm sure you know. The first LED fixture showed up on our street this spring as one of the old sodium lights went out. There have been a couple of others here and there as the old lights burn out. Another one in the next street over is visible through the trees. Some of the neighborhoods just to the north of us have all switched to LEDs, and my brother's newer neighborhood in Southeast Austin (way out on Slaughter Lane) are all LEDs.
I don't know, I sort of have a love-hate relationship with the sodium lights. I dislike the unnatural orange glow of them, but at the same time, they're probably less distracting from starlight and other astronomical light than the LEDs seem to be. There's also the issue of the LEDs being a bit harsher.
The funny thing is, I remember that Austin used to have mercury vapor lights even before the sodium ones. So, actually, the LEDs are a bit of a return to what I remember seeing as a kid when we used to go for walks in the neighborhood in the evening when everything was sort of a twilight moonish glow. The neighbors across from us and to the left have a street light on the easement fronting their property. It lights up our driveway and the front yard somewhat below the tree canopy. The last time I remember that bulb being replaced was well over 10 years ago, which, from what I was able to find on Google, is well beyond the typical lifespan of a sodium bulb, which is a little more than 3 years.