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My uncle swore a red filter would ruin night vision... he was dead wrong | Backyard Stargazing - nhfree.com

My uncle swore a red filter would ruin night vision... he was dead wrong

So my uncle Bob, he's been into astronomy since the 70s, told me last year that using a red flashlight would mess up my eyes for seeing faint stars. I believed him for like 6 months, just stumbling around in the dark trying to find my eyepieces. Then I got frustrated one night and tried a red headlamp I had kicking around from camping. Man, I could see my charts fine and within a minute I was picking out the Veil Nebula with my 8 inch dob. Uncle Bob was super nice about it when I told him, said he'd been repeating old advice from some old book. Has anyone else gotten bad tips from well meaning family members that just turned out to be wrong?

3 comments

3 Comments

wesley_thompson2mo ago

Forgot my uncle once told me that you gotta let your telescope sit outside for 45 minutes before using it or the mirror would crack from the temperature change. I spent a whole year setting up my scope an hour before dark and just staring at the sky waiting. Turns out that's for those big observatory mirrors that cost more than my car. My 6 inch dob was fine after like 10 minutes. I still let it cool down a bit but I'm not sitting there twiddling my thumbs for nearly an hour anymore.

zara_hill462mo ago

Didn't a buddy of mine fall for that same exact thing @wesley_thompson?

the_olivia2mo ago

Wait, did your uncle actually watch you do this for a whole year and not say anything? That's the real question here, because my relatives would have been laughing at me the whole time. I mean, how long did it take you to realize you were being messed with? Did you ever catch him smiling every time you complained about waiting for your stupid telescope to cool down? Because I bet that was part of the joke for him. Your uncle sounds like he knew exactly what he was doing.