Article on the "Evil MV Security light"

[Mike]

Article is here.

I made a comment under "Mike" though comments are moderated so it won't appear right away...

[Jace the Gull]

I would support the sheilding....but banning or shooting it, no, but shielding...but MV is not the biggest problem...it's the HPS that spills much more in a bucket form....a HPS in bucket is a lot worse than a MV bucket....

Honestly instead of having ALL HPS with FCO, you'll have better result with MV FCO, esp for clear MV FCO! The clear MV are actually easier to filter than HPS....but LPS are the easiest....

By the way I made a comment under Jason

[mercuryvaporrocks]

Amen to that. The bucket lights are the problem, not the light source. Only the group inappropriately named the International Dark Sky Association wants MV lighting banned.

[joe_347V]

I'm guessing they just hate MV, Like others said it's really the buckets that cause the glare and not MV. If they really wanted to reduce glare they should get the buckets banned and only allow shielded refractors. Even the old gumball refractors had better shielding than the buckets.

[vintagelites]

I am a major fan of MV. I do however tend to agree about bucket luminaires being a cheap, non controlled glare bomb. I never liked them or used them.
A quality luminaire has excellent light control that does not infringe on nearby properties. I actually have a vintage 400W MV GE Form 109 on the side of my house to illuminate my RV access which when illuminated, keeps about 75 percent of it's light on my property mounted at 15ft. high. A neighbor two doors down has a 175 watt bucket bomber which shines light directly into his neighbors windows. Worse yet, another bucket light nearby has low wattage CFL power and is even worse than the 175W MV model. These fixtures when used on residential driveways makes the neighborhood look like a industrial park. Owners tend to never relamp them because they wait for it to burn out like a incandescent, giving off sour green light for months or years.
It is the cheap fixture design with crap optics causing all the fuss. They are a nail in the coffin for MV. I would not miss them. My 2 cents worth.

[mercuryvaporrocks]

At this point, this issue has little to do with lighting pollution and everything to do with condescending, ego-driven hubris of the IDA. It's unfortunate that the IDA has adopted a strategy of talking over everyone else in the discussion and force-feeding the ban on mercury vapor ballasts and fixtures, even though this did not solve the lighting pollution problem. They have no regard for the impact their stubborn stance has on other parties even if it results in severe financial hardships for others. Utility companies and consumers are now paying more for replacement fixtures and replacement lamps which do not last as long as mercury vapor ones. It's time for the misinformed groups such as the IDA out there to tone down their belligerence and engage in a mature dialogue in this discussion as well as others but they are just stubborn.