You know the theory - visual purple (rhodopsin) is depleted more rapidly with shorter wavelengths. That is why red is the choice. Green is supposed to deplete the visual purple more often. Many years ago when I was working for a local computer graphics company, I had the chance to work with some folks at NASA - Moffett Field. Some researchers were using some of our color image generators in flight simulators to explore what the best color for cockpit illumination and pilot visibility is. They were of the opinion that green was better than red, and that the depletion of rhodopsin was minimally larger than that with red light. The heavy iron these days uses white light in the cockpit. There is no worry any longer about the color of light. Of course, it is dimmable, and what a pilot needs to see is much brighter than what an astronomer needs to see. FWIW, YMMV, etc. Brent --- Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com> wrote:
Many of you use the red LED-equipped pens for taking notes at night.
I just received a green version, apparently made by the same company, but the body is turquoise rather than black.
There was some debate awhile ago on whether red is really the best "color" for an astronomer's light; some folks claiming that intensity was more important than wavelength (color), especially at the very dim settings we normally use. I must confess that I prefer a green or white light for reading charts, from an aesthetic standpoint alone, but tend to use red just to avoid irritating fellow observers.
Now there is a choice. I plan on trying both out at the eyepiece to see if I can detect a difference in my dark adaptation, aesthetics aside.
Amercian Science & Surplus has the green ones, stock #34489.
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