As a Board member of the Fountain Hills Dark Sky Association, I am submitting this letter as Part 1 in a seven-part community education series, which is required by the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) for Fountain Hills to achieve the prestigious Dark Sky Community designation.

The Fountain Hills Dark Sky Association supports the appropriate use of outdoor lighting for safety or other reasons. However, it’s important to use smart lighting.

A key to smart lighting is to use shielded fixtures. A fully shielded light fixture has a solid barrier (cap) at the top of the fixture where the lamp (bulb) is located. As a result, the lamp is not visible below the barrier; hence no light is wastefully and annoyingly cast above the horizontal into others’ eyes and into the sky.

Using smart, fully shielded lighting will prevent light trespass, which adversely affects neighboring properties; glare, which causes discomfort or temporary blindness; and sky glow, which destroys the splendor of the night sky. Additionally, shielded lights provide significantly more useful light than unshielded lights with the same size lamp.

Many different fully shielded light fixtures are available for all lighting situations and architectural styles and can be found on the IDA website, darksky.org.

When choosing landscape light fixtures, always choose those that provide predominantly downlighting rather than uplighting.

In addition to shielding, timers and sensors should be used to minimize unnecessary lighting rather than leaving outdoor lights on all night, which is a waste of energy and an annoyance to neighbors. And contrary to common belief, there is no scientific evidence that increased outdoor lighting deters crime.

Another key to smart lighting is choosing the right Correlated Color Temperature (CCT), which is the subject of next week’s letter.

More information, with illustrations, is available at our website, fhdarksky.com.