Dark Sky Friendly Lighting Program

It’s easy to be a good neighbor with your outdoor lighting! Here’s how:

1. Limit Lighting

Use only the amount of outdoor lighting that you need and only when you need it. The great thing about light pollution is that you can stop it at the speed of light! You can simply turn off lights that you’re not using or regulate them from your cell phone using a smart dimmer/timer switch.

2. Use Shielding

Use only lighting fixtures that direct light downward and prevent light from shining up or horizontally away from the fixture. There are many online sources of these types of fixtures that are generally called dark sky friendly or dark sky compliant. Here is a link to a database of places to purchase those types of fixtures: https://darksky.org/what-we-do/darksky-approved/luminaires/. We are working of getting our local Ace Hardware store to stock some of these items.

3. Make it Safe for Wildlife

While the most environmentally friendly lighting you can use outdoors is no lighting at all, if you are going to use outdoor light at night, the healthiest color of light to use is on the red end of the color spectrum. This sometimes refeered to as “warm light”. It is also more accurately described by a specific color-temperature amount. A range between 2200K and 2700k is optimal, but 3000K is OK too.

4. Keep it Close

We all go to bed at different times, we all get up at different times, and we all have a different amount of outdoor light that we want. While we all have the right of putting light on our property we also should respect the rights of our neighbors to not have any light if that is what they desire. In the same way that we respect our neighbors by limiting our noise level and by not walking on their property without thier permission, we can also prevent our outdoor light from trespassing onto their property. We do that by being conscientious of where we place outdoor lights and the direction the light goes.