Red Light Torch - Rigel Starlite

[Qualia]

To retain night vision most astronomers recommend a red light but red light in itself does not simply equate to suitable for night vision, a lesson it’s taken me a while to learn.

Any light impacts on dark adaptation, but for the minimum impact, a very dim red is best. In my search for the most suitable red light, I have stuck red plastic circles over the torch, hand painted the end with deep red nail varnish, had the little lights covered in red ballon ends, have used red LED torches for bicycles and camping and none of them have ever really worked for me .

In my mind a real astronomy light should start out dim with no chance of triggering any kind of white light by mistake and it should be able to go from that really dim light to truly dark adapted dim settings. Even the little devices I have made for myself or which I have seen other folk using, have either been too bright or with very little chance of dimming them further .

You see, it's not just about having a red light; it's about having dim and then an even dimmer and dimmer red light. Something like a Telrad or Quickfinder where you set it to barely visible circles and as the night progresses, you keep dimming them as the evening sky darkens more and more. Sure, with any of the modifications made, I ended up with a red light but it was never adjustable to the given surroundings or circumstances I found myself in. Inevitably, it would either be too bright or too dark, depending on the task at hand.

While a certain amount of light would be needed to read the fine detail of star charts, another was needed for the beginning and middle of the night collimation check out in the middle of the desert-lands, and another amount of light was needed for sketching or looking for something that had been mislaid or dropped, and so on. One modified torch, not two or three, could do all that was required of them.

I also found that this red light should not only be as dim as possible in each of the given situations encountered, but also diffuse enough so that there was no bright point-source of red light. By this I mean that although the torch light itself appeared dim, the actual light was still pumping out at a more intense wavelength. This may not seem a problem until I tried tweaking the collimation whilst holding one of my red torches through the Cheshire’s side or when I accidently looked at the torch end whilst sketching. A moment of singular brightness and dark adaption was back to square one.

It seemed absolutely ridiculous situation. I had spent a good amount of cash on a nice truss Dob, pricey eyepieces, and other astro-gear, had carried myself far to a dark site only to be limiting my observing potential by a silly red light. In my search for an ideal red light, I found that even the best most often used a  620 - 630 nm range of the visible spectrum but to achieve that true night vision light, I needed a wavelength that was 660 nm or greater, in the deep-red range of the visible spectrum. Not only that but I needed this light to be adjustable for the simple reasons given above.

When looking about I couldn’t find many favourable reviews of any of the more mainstream astronomy red lights on the market. Whether I searched in English, Spanish or Italian, there was hardly a favourable review of the Skywatcher, Orion, or Celestron red lights, all of which are generally considered very poor quality items. I had almost given up my searchings when by accident I stumbled upon a tiny Spanish outlet selling a true deep red light made by Rigel Systems.

This little torch called a Rigel Starlite has been one of the best accessory buys I have ever made. It simply is better than any other torch I've ever used. Sure, it’s a reasonably expensive item costing around €25 but I guess I’ve spent that already trying to modify my own red light experiments and at the end of the day, it seems a very small price to pay in terms of astro-gear when at the extreme fringe of dso targets and trying to sketch them, or hunting them out on my star chart and back to the eyepiece or tweaking the truss dob’s collimation at 3am in the morning.

The Rigel is retangular and flattened so it doesn’t roll about and comes with a handy neck cord, but of more importance it provides an even illumination without a hint of hot-spots, completely unlike anything else I’ve used or seen. You turn a very sensitive rheostat dial to adjust the actual brightness you need. It starts with a minimum, a barely visible deep brown-blood red light and dials all the way up to a too-bright, although very handy if needed, red light.

I’m sure everyone has their own solutions to the red light dilemma but if anyone has ever found their torches to be too limiting, or a tad too bright as the evening rolls on, the Rigel Starlite is what I will be recommending from now on. It really is a most excellent controllable torch .

[Pig]

Qualia,

Great write up and very thorough as usual    I currently use a head torch that has a sliding red lens, to get around the over bight scenario I have resorted to using older batteries taken from my bike lights that are no longer bright enough for use when riding at night..

I have often looked for a light that has a controller to adjust the light output to what you need but I have only ever found lights that have a 3 staged stepped output so your discovery will be very useful and will save me scratting around for old batteries.

[jetstream]

Thanks for the report Rob,this light is just what I need too,in addition to my "head lamp".great find.

[Guest]

Good report.  Got a link?

[Qualia]

Thank you for the kind comments The torch is only worth it if you need to control that light output, otherwise a couple of torches might be the cheapest and simplest way to go. It just ended making more sense to me, seeing as I need to collimate the scope whilst at the dark site, sketch, read the star atlas, pack up etc and each activity required a different power that no modified troch allowed me. You can find a link to Rigel Systems here.

[Pig]

Here guys - UK

http://www.365astronomy.com/rigel-starlite-red-water-resistant-flashlight-with-brightness-control-p-3788.html

[luminova11]

Thanks for the review. On the ever increasing 'to buy' list.

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