Subject: International Dark-Sky Assocociation

From: [email-masked] (Doug Bell)
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 95 20:02:26 GMT

>Philip Decker ([email-masked]) wrote:
>: I hope all of you involved in outdoor lighting are
>: supporting members of the International Dark-Sky
>: Association (IDA).  Otherwise, the day will come
>: when there are no urban residents who remember
>: seeing the stars.
>
>regarding the IDA....how about some info on that? I would be very
>interested in finding out more about it!
>
>Janet Connolly

(Objective information follows)

    The IDA is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting quality
outdoor lighting and preserving the night sky.  Its premise is that the
night sky is intrinsically beautiful and worth preserving.  It also holds
that quality lighting is both safer (due to better light values and lower
glare), cheaper (due to more efficient lamps and less wasted light), and less
obtrusive.  The group was started by professional and amateur astronomers
but now includes many illumination professionals and members of the general
public.

    The IDA is a great source of information regarding outdoor illumination
and the effects of wasted light, glare, light trespass, and skyglow.  It is also
involved in setting community standards for lighting design and establishing
building codes and ordinances to enforce them.  The IDA sponsors occasional
meetings, a newsletter, an information database, and supports a WWW home
page at:

	http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/"graff/nelpag/ida/IDA1.HTML  (whew!)

(IDA member opinion follows)

    IDA is doing a lot of good work at making our communities safer and
more pleasant places to live.  That the public also supports these issues
is shown by the number of lighting suppliers and commercial developers
(particularly those trying to get approval to build near residential areas)
who are getting competitive advantage by providing and using quality
lighting systems.

   This may actually sound more involved than it is.  In practice this
means that lighting systems should be designed, not just installed.
They should be fully shielded to keep the light where it's wanted, timed
to provide light only when wanted, sized to use only as much as needed,
and selected to provide the appropriate color rendition.  The end result
is an illumination system with pleasing uniformity and color, little trespass
and glare, good visibility, and low lifetime costs.

   I would expect a lighting professional to be aware of these issues even
if their clients are not. I would hope that he/she would consider it a
professional's responsibility to incorporate them into his/her lighting
plans.

    You should support IDA.  The memberships are cheap, the information is
free.  They are some of the biggest supporters of professionally designed
lighting I can think of.  The also have lots of experience selling good
lighting systems to skeptical audiences (your potential clients!)

    (Disclosure.  I am a member of IDA and an amateur astronomer.  I
am not a lighting engineer and am not associated with any lighting
supplier, installer, or designer.)

Best wishes,
Doug Bell	[email-masked]

Doug Bell               Opinions expressed are strictly my own.
[email-masked]