Re: Ion blue lights - a test report

[Luis Marques <marques@rtis.ray.com>]

Linus Toy <linust@mindspring.com> wrote:
> why is it, then, that they use red lighting in instrument panels to
> maintain night vision?  curious.

So that the instruments don't disturb your night vission.  In the dark, your
eyes use the green "sensor cells" which are relatively unaffected by red
light.  By the same token, the worst possible lighting for the
instruments/radio in your car is green, since it will overload your night
vission and decrease its sensitivity.  Recovery time is about two minutes.

Small eye trivia: the human eye has three different sensing cells; they are
sentive to red, green, and blue light (that's where the old color monitor
standard RGB came from).  In high brightness conditions (daytime), the eye is
most sensitive to red light and can discern colors very well.  In dark
conditions (night), the eye is more sensitive to green light and can't
distinguish colors too well.

Luis Marques
'87 4kcsq