Is this poor man’s night vision?

Asked by Ltryptophan (12091

) March 18th, 2021 from iPhone

When I was young I had an indiglo watch. Naturally, I pushed the indiglo button and shined it directly into my eye.

I happened to notice at night that by opening one eye while simultaneously shining the indiglo into the other eye, it seemed to give me a slightly better view in the dark.

Now, try this at your own risk.

What do you think? A minimal at best increase in detail?

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4 Answers

I don’t know what Indiglo uses for luminescence, but in early watches they used a weakened radium compound. The problem was that had enough radioactivity to be dangerous.

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So be careful

elbanditoroso (33685

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As I understand it Timex (not sure about other brands, but I imagine it’s fairly standard these days), for its indiglo watches, uses a phosphor coated plate which is then electrically charged to make to glow. So it’s not radioactive, not something that’s going to be harmful really. But you might not want to take it apart and eat the plate.

Darth_Algar (18933

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As a trivial aside: I actually live in one of the towns where the radium dials were made.

Darth_Algar (18933

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