Look what happened when Circle K improved its canopy lighting

Mike Weasner recently took some photos of a change in lighting at a Circle K gas station near Arizona's Oracle State Park, which is designated an International Dark Sky Park by the IDA. By installing the lights within the canopy rather than below it, the gas station kept its pumps well lit while eliminating the glare of the old lamps. The new design also greatly reduces the artificial skyglow produced by the site, because light emitted towards the horizon is the most likely to be scattered back to Earth before it reaches space, and because Circle K chose a warm looking LED with 3000 K instead of an LED with a higher fraction of blue light.

Improved Circle K lighting by Mike Weasner is licensed under
a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Local businesses and Chambers of Commerce are usually very supportive of efforts to create dark sky parks, because they tend to bring in a lot of additional visitors into the area. As you can see from Mike's photos, being near a Dark Sky Place doesn't mean giving up artificial light, it just means using it more wisely.