Streetlights polluting your shots of the starry night sky? A strategically placed laser might be just what you need.
Destin Sandlin of the YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay recently paid a visit to the house of NASA astronaut (and photographer) Don Pettit, who showed Sandlin a trick that he uses to temporarily disable an annoying streetlight just down the street. You can see this “life hack” in action at 1:04 in the video above.
We’re not sure about the legality of this trick in places around the US and the world, but here’s the gist of it: you can turn off certain streetlights by pointing a semi-strong red laser at it.
Pettit says green ones won’t work, at least in his experience. The astronaut found his surplus red laser at a junkyard and mounted it to a pole in front of his house:
Next, point the laser at the sensor found near the lamp on streetlights. These are light-sensing sensors that turn the lights on when the sun goes down:
After a brief moment, the laser should trick the sensor into thinking that it’s daytime again, and the lamp should switch off:
Again, you should check the legality of doing this in your city before putting this in your bag of tricks. If it is okay for you to do, then it’s a handy way to kill some light pollution for your astrophotography.
P.S. You can find more SmarterEveryDay videos here. We’ve also featured Pettit’s photography a number of times in the past: here’s a talk he gave on space photography, photos of him floating in space with cameras, and a couple of inspiring videos on shooting from the ISS.
(via SmarterEveryDay via Reddit)
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