well I heard Dark Sky said mercury vapors are just excuse for cheap yard lights and they want it to stop because of the bucket lights........but what I think they should really be doing is shielding them...not banning them because if mercury vapors are banned...guess what will happen.....they will start making MH bucket lights for residental and make it cheap...and guess what...it would be worse for dark sky cuz they are BRIGHTER....I think they should make a law about shielding bucketl lights or make a different design and ban the bucket shaped fixtures instead of banning mercury vapor
Actually "bucket lights" aren't even the main problem. Floodlights that are intended to light objects (billboards, flags, buildings, etc) but shine 80% of their light into the sky, wallpacks with poorly designed optics (pretty much every wallpack you'll ever see), fluorescent backlighted signs, and decorative HID landscape/street luminaires (usually MH/HPS at that) that throw light everywhere are the main problems...or at least, from what I've seen they're the main problems.
And, please remember that the International Dark-Sky Association (and mostly anyone who supports Dark Sky Preservation) knows nothing about outdoor lighting other than that they hate it, and they want to keep it that way. They're activists and they believe their opinions are facts, and no one can change their minds and the only reason they're attacking MV lighting is because it's the easiest target. Even if an engineer from a luminaire or lamp manufacture were to explain everything to them, they'd say that the engineer is only saying it to keep mercury vapor products on the market.
also dark sky wants to ban mercury cuz it has mercury in it....BUT HEY fluorecent tubes has MORE mercury...so does MH that has same amount of mercury.....they don't regonize it.....it's just cause the Mercury Vapor's name! thats IMO......
You're absolutely right. If it doesn't have "mercury" in its name, people assume it doesn't contain it. Which is
why MV lighting is the easiest target, since it contributes to light pollution
and contains mercury. And since no one remembers the periodic table (this is America, after all), they don't realize that the "Hg" symbol on newer fluorescent, MH, and HPS lamps means they contain mercury, and you know no one reads the information printed on the packaging.
And hey, it's not just your or my opinion, it's fairly true. My 8th grade science teacher actually said (to our class) that fluorescent lamps use fluorine to produce light and that's why they're called
fluorescent. I corrected her, and she responded "no, they can't use mercury because it's too dangerous." Yeah, that's why you're not supposed to lick the floor after a fluorescent lamp busts open on it. The kids in the class looked at me like I was an idiot after that. Oh well, ignorance is bliss.
Honestly, the day I have to take down my "bucket lights" because some sky hippies got their way will be the day I put two 2kW (ok well, probably not
actually 2kW) metal halide floodlights outside and aim them at the sky. What? They're not talking about banning
metal halide lamps. I'd be doing nothing wrong! And how better to make a point?
