Technical Report: Photobiological Hazard Assessment of Orbital Solar Reflectors
Executive Summary This report details a photobiological hazard assessment of the general concept of Orbital Solar Reflectors (OSRs). A recent proposal, Reflect Orbital’s proposed Earendil-1 satellite is used as an exemplar. The analysis was conducted following IEC...
Solid Angles
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2014/07/26 Do you suffer from math anxiety? A surprising number of us do (e.g., Wigfield 1988). I would tell you the exact numbers, but you would need to understand...
Understanding Mesopic Photometry
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2013/10/08 If you are involved with outdoor area or roadway lighting design, you will undoubtedly encounter such terms as mesopic multipliers, scotopic lumens, and S/P...
Thoughts on Color Rendering
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2014/01/05 UPDATE 14/10/06 - LightingEurope, the "Voice of the Lighting Industry," has just published their LightingEurope Position Paper on Color Quality. To summarize:...
The Kruithof Curve
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2015/01/12 UPDATE 16/04/09 - This metastudy: Fotois, S. 2106. "A Revised Kruithof Graph Based on Empirical Data," Leukos. (Published online 08 April 2016, DOI...
Sports Lighting Regulations
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2016/04/30 This blog article has a somewhat frustrating history. About a year ago, I was asked to volunteer my time to write a primer of light and color as it...
Solar Illumination
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2015/01/21 Lighting design is based in part on the reasonable assumption that photometric units have precise definitions. The candela, for example, has a precise...
Seeing Ultraviolet
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2015/10/26 UPDATE 15/11/08 - The following text briefly notes that some people can see near-ultraviolet radiation following cataract surgery due to the UV transmittance of...
Rethinking the Photometric Data File Format
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2017/03/01 If you perform lighting design calculations today, you can thank the efforts of the IES Computer Committee (IESCC) some thirty years ago. Its members recognized...
Phytochrome and PSS
Ian Ashdown, P. Eng., FIES, Senior Scientist, SunTracker Technologies Ltd. Published: 2016/12/09 Horticultural lighting is currently one of the fastest-expanding markets in commercial lighting, with projected revenues of several billion dollars in less than...