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View Full Version : Green vision!



v5planet
01-29-2010, 00:08
I often read a bit before bed, and lately I've been reading by my headlamp, which was a gift, to get a feel for what that'll be like on the trail in the coming months. A couple nights ago I discovered its red light setting and noticed an interesting effect on my color perception. A light outside filters in through my blinds at night, and although it's your standard yellow electric light, after reading for about 20 minutes it has a noticeable, almost ludicrously pronounced green cast.

I'm familiar with this effect to some extent with years of amateur astronomy in my younger days, when red light was used to keep your pupils dilated and your rods working at full force. Looking through the eyepiece with dark adapted eyes you lose almost all color sensitivity except for part of the green spectrum. So I'm use to seeing nebula as green, but that has always been with really dim light sources you can only even discern by using averted vision.

To have it happen so intensely with a fairly bright light filtering in through the window? Wow!

Has anyone else had similar experience with this?