color, power, and visibility.

[joeyss]

Your eyes in the dark peak at ~ 507nm.

This only applies to dim light.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

Hey guys not to threadjack but my question is somewhat related. Max visible spectrum is something like 556nm but I read a post from Greenlander informing that that is the max visible spectrum for daylight while darkness has a different max visible spectrum. Does anyone know what the max visible spectrum in darkness is?
Thx

It's the difference between photopic (light-adapted) and scotopic (dark-adapted) vision. You can see the tables here.

Beware that dark-adapted vision also requires that the light sources are very low power, otherwise you lose your night vision. Also, night-vision is essentially colorblind; everything looks bluish.

When viewing lasers at night, your vision is usually in the mesopic vision regime, which is somewhat in the middle of photopic and scotopic vision, but really more about how your brain interprets high-contrast light situations.

 

[hakzaw1]

Most use 400-700nm as the range of 'visible' wavelenghths-BUT some people can see 'some' IR where the rest of us do not-

and BB is correct- it takes some time for our eyes to adapt to low light BUT just a second of bright light to take that all away- thus the reason that the best laser for 'star pointing' or 'telescope aiming' is a low power one.

And IMO a red would be better than a green

'truckers' cover one eye when a car approaches with brights or simply bright dims- this keeps your night vision good in the covered eye- try it- it works.

In Mexico some truckers use ONLY 'running lights' thinking its safer to have good night vision than to be easily seen from a longer distance.(once away from cities). & it maintains night vision.


BUT only ..one of the reasons that tourists are NOT encouraged to drive at night in Mexico at all.

 

[Alaskan]

Here's a question about the nearly invisible spectrum, but in the other direction, is 405nm the shortest wavelength we can currently obtain reasonably priced laser diodes with a few hundred mw or more of power output? Are there any diodes in the 300-400nm range? I can't seem to find any, light emitting diodes yes, laser diodes no.

 

[NightExplorer96]

Here's a question about the nearly invisible spectrum, but in the other direction, is 405nm the shortest wavelength we can currently obtain reasonably priced laser diodes with a few hundred mw or more of power output? Are there any diodes in the 300-400nm range? I can't seem to find any, light emitting diodes yes, laser diodes no.

I know 375nm diodes exist along with 400nm diodes. Both are very expensive for a few mW's. If you have the cash though, you can probably get them in 100mW's+ powers

-Alex