Hawaii street lights (Hilo: pollution, design, island)

[Brav989]

I've been wondering for a while about the street lights in Hawaii. I've only been to Big island so can only speak for there. Talking about the ones that are basically just yellow and don't seem to illuminate anything. What is with those? They really did not do much to light anything up, and all of the street lamps were that design/color. Is there a reason for that type, or is that just how it is?

[cynmkolohe]

I remember hearing something about the reason for those lights being an effort to avoid interfering with the telescopes..."light pollution"...Not really sure about that, but it makes sense, I guess.

[Brav989]

Originally Posted by cynmkolohe

I remember hearing something about the reason for those lights being an effort to avoid interfering with the telescopes..."light pollution"...Not really sure about that, but it makes sense, I guess.

I had wondered that too. Based on the observatories on the mountains, plus the street lamps are about 50% in height as those in the mainland.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

The street lights on the Big Island are low-pressure sodium lights. Because these lights are monochromatic, their yellow-orange light can be filtered out by astronomers using colored filters. This is not possible for light from broad-spectrum lighting, which contains light of many different colors.

On our first trip to Hawaii, before we knew about these lights, we were planning to have someone we didn't know pick us up at the airport. We told them to look for my husband's bright green neon aloha shirt. We were shocked to find that under the yellow streetlights, his shirt looked grey!

[cynmkolohe]

Check out this article from today's paper for proposed changes:

Hawaii Tribune-Herald :: Hilo, Hawaii (http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2007/10/21/local_news/local03.txt - broken link)