Chuck Gould wrote:

in the pilothouse to better facilitate night vision. The red or blue
portions of the spectrum will provide adequate visibility without
destroying the ability of the eye to see clearly after dark.

Interesting subject.

Red is a good, but only at low wavelengths - around 600 millimicrons.
At higher wavelengths, it is virtually the same as white light.

Better is blue/green (teal) around 525 millimicrons.

If you need to see color, then very low intensity white light is
preferred. And if you need to keep your night vision, cover one
eye

Now the inevitable question is, why are instrument lights red?

They aren't - they are orange/red because of people who are
color blind.

HAH!!!

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
Chuck Gould wrote:

in the pilothouse to better facilitate night vision. The red or blue
portions of the spectrum will provide adequate visibility without
destroying the ability of the eye to see clearly after dark.

Interesting subject.

Red is a good, but only at low wavelengths - around 600 millimicrons.
At higher wavelengths, it is virtually the same as white light.

Better is blue/green (teal) around 525 millimicrons.


I thought it was best to stay away from the peak response of
the rod @ ~500nm. That's why a longer wavelength red 600nm
is good. 525nm is almost at peak rod sensitivity. (?)

http://webvision.med.utah.edu/imageswv/spectra.jpeg

-rick-

-rick- wrote:
Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
Chuck Gould wrote:

in the pilothouse to better facilitate night vision. The red or blue
portions of the spectrum will provide adequate visibility without
destroying the ability of the eye to see clearly after dark.

Interesting subject.

Red is a good, but only at low wavelengths - around 600 millimicrons.
At higher wavelengths, it is virtually the same as white light.

Better is blue/green (teal) around 525 millimicrons.

I thought it was best to stay away from the peak response of the rod @
~500nm. That's why a longer wavelength red 600nm is good. 525nm is
almost at peak rod sensitivity. (?)

http://webvision.med.utah.edu/imageswv/spectra.jpeg

Not really. The thinking was that the molecule Rhodopsin (The G protein
involved with color vision (purple)) was not responsive to red
wavelengths and that red was naturally the best color for night vision.

As I understand it, and I'm willing to be proved wrong on this, higher
frequency red is not necessarily the best color because of that very
reason - you lose more far vision, depth perception change, color
perception with red than blue/green. The lower blue/green (ok, let's
just call it teal) can be used at higher intensity without damaging
depth perception, far vision and color sense.

That's why most instrument panels in cars and I believe aircraft, are
in the blue/green spectrum around 525 millimicrons.

Here's a good web site that discusses this is much detail.
http://stlplaces.com/night_vision.html

Keith wrote:
Here's a good web site that discusses this is much detail.

http://stlplaces.com/night_vision.html

Cool - thanks.

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
Keith wrote:
Here's a good web site that discusses this is much detail.

http://stlplaces.com/night_vision.html

Cool - thanks.

Very helpful, thanks!

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:

Not really. The thinking was that the molecule Rhodopsin (The G protein
involved with color vision (purple)) was not responsive to red
wavelengths and that red was naturally the best color for night vision.

As I understand it, and I'm willing to be proved wrong on this, higher
frequency red is not necessarily the best color because of that very
reason - you lose more far vision, depth perception change, color
perception with red than blue/green. The lower blue/green (ok, let's
just call it teal) can be used at higher intensity without damaging
depth perception, far vision and color sense.

That's why most instrument panels in cars and I believe aircraft, are
in the blue/green spectrum around 525 millimicrons.


As usual I oversimplified and reality is quite a bit more
complex. Thanks for the help.

-rick-