FCO's really do work

The lights with the red arrows are the FCO lights installed by the NRA at the Airport Roundabout in Dublin. Despite the fuzzy photo (It was taken on a ryanair plane seconds from landing!) you can see that the pollution from the FCO's is less than the more distant older SOX and semi cut off lights.

Excellent ... nice to see the difference in a local context.

Lets hope we see many more FCO fittings in the future.

Bart.

Now thats great, a real life example fo what differance the full cut off light makes, good stuff Al.

Nicely done. This is hard evidence (can't think of it another way!) to give to local councils and authorities for the benefits of using FCO's. Be it for roads, or simply carparks that must be lit all night long, to parks and perhaps to an extent playing field (as like the floodlight issue with Croker last week).

Seanie.

Yes ! There seems to be gathering momentum in the use of FCO's, I see them being used now more often in new developments a lot recently

Keith..

Yes ! There seems to be gathering momenyum in the use of FCO's, I see them being used now more often in new developments a lot recently

The NRA use them on all new roads anyway. I havent heard of any developer or council committing to using them exclusivly.

Councils haven't quite gone as far as the NRA, but my local council is replacing the old streetlights with shallow semi-cut off designs as the old lights fail.

These new lights are not quite full cut off; they have a very shallow bowl underneath them. This is apparently needed to ensure adequate light spread aloong the ground as the council is just replacing the light fittings not moving the masts. While they are not perfect they are a vast improvement; I'm was told by a lighting expert that the light spilt above the horizon is 15 times lower with these lights.

For an idea of the lights I'm talking about have a look at page 5 of this presentation.
www.irishastronomy.org/ilpac/Documents/asgi-iop.swf

Cheers,
~Al