Our New Lights.

I'm afraid I'm a bit behind in my blips, a week to be precise, and don't have many pictures to fill in the gap. My profile does say that there are no promises of regular postings, I am now delivering that non-promise.

I don't normally draw the bedroom curtains at night but, last night, I had some bright white lights shining in. The closest street lamps to the house had been changed from the old sodium models to the new LED(?) version. See last Tuesday's view of the scary looking man in the cherry picker working on one installation. You will note from this posting that he has forgotten one of them.
About a year ago I took this same view and present this version for comparison. You might like to amuse yourselves for a few moments seeing how many vehicles you can recognise, most of them are parked in the same positions.

I assume that the general idea is to provide brighter lights that use less power and spew less light up into the sky to spoil our view of the stars. About six years ago, on a cold December night, I cycled across the high moor land in the borders; apart from nearly freezing to death, I was amazed to have a clear view of the milky way; the first time that I could remember seeing it since my schooldays. It's difficult to say what impressed me more about that ride, the Arctic temperatures or the wonderful view of the heavens.
Normally light pollution prevents us from seeing most of the stars; in fact I recently heard an astronomer saying that, when he was a kid, he went to see a planetarium and wouldn't believe what they showed him; he knew from star-gazing in his home town of New York that there were only four stars in the sky.

p.s. I would like to emphasis that the one street lamp planted in the middle of the pavement, that any distracted pedestrian is likely to walk into, has not been moved.