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Recommended red light headtorch


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At Wallmart, I have one of these "Iglow" you can select either white or red without passing on white to go to red. But honestly I don't find it useful because I have to move my head to point the light where I want to point it, it's not convivial to read the atlas and the light is way too strong, it's a high power led.

http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/iglow-4-pack-led-headlamp/6000188822986

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I prefer to hold a small custom made low power red led flash light and use my hand to point the light where I want. This is my custom made bellow, the diffusion is better then the latter, is smoother and much less aggressive to preserve dark adaptation. It's basically a Chinese white led toy, I had to unweld the white lights from the module and replace them with red ones from the same electronic store. I had to remove 1 battery out of 3 to get 2 volts instead of 4.5, they need to run at 2.x volts.

--> Now I have a very very great and useful custom tool. Actually I am using this red light to also sketch outside, mounted on a custom made magnet support. It's a fun project to do, just for the sake of knowing I am not going to give away another 50$ for a specialised gadget at my local shop ? For me that's gold the DIY.

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I hope it's inspiring. (I work in public services so we always like to build custom things ourselves at the repair shop)

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The type of light used may also be determined by your intended observing location. If you venture to a dark sky location void of any stray light, then you would want to capitalise on gaining full dark adaption. To enable this, the next best thing besides using no light at all, is a dim one LED switched on for when close up work is required. With full dark adaption, it can be surprising how much you can see or do without any light source. 

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48 minutes ago, scarp15 said:

The type of light used may also be determined by your intended observing location. If you venture to a dark sky location void of any stray light, then you would want to capitalise on gaining full dark adaption. To enable this, the next best thing besides using no light at all, is a dim one LED switched on for when close up work is required. With full dark adaption, it can be surprising how much you can see or do without any light source. 

Yes the intended location would certainly determine the type of light you might require. The night fishing visits took us out to some very remote and dark places and dark adaptation and the Petzl E was OK for general close in work or helping to re-establish your bearings but I have to say if you dropped something or needed to see anything in more detail from more than a few metres I just found the red light under powered. I had to set it to white to see my way clear enough through dark fields. I have used it for astronomy at our dark site and it simply does not provide enough light to assist in setting up or looking for something dropped. That is my personal experience of it but it may very well be the right tool for others especially with better eyesight!  

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Quite right and dropping things particularly black eyepiece caps can be a pain. I use a ground mat which occasionally helps a bit. When packing up and if alone, I switch to white light and will use white light to scout around before heading off. In  terms of setting up again if alone I'm not too phased whether I use red or white light though if joining an already established group, will always fumble around and use red, practice and perseverance I guess.

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I think that like Takahashi I find them a bit "unsocial". People buy a red light headtorch and as they are red then they must be OK to shine in someones face/eyes. It is very uncomfortable having some one stood 2 feet from you shining a set of what are bright LED's in your eyes. But because they are red thats OK, everyone says red is fine. It's not.

I would say a head torch is fine if you are in effect on your own, you are not going to blind someone you are going to have a conversation with - no one there to have a conversation with.

If the idea is to use red to look around for equipment then I suspect that the intensity is too high to preserve night vision, also check the wavelength emitted, Some red is reasonable but some will still damage your night vision, not all red is OK. I would say that the headtorch LED's are wrong, bit to orange/red, the red wavelength of 625nm is not long enough better are the 660nm wavelength ones. That red is a deep red.

If there are people around I use a torch, if you have a torch even red you would not shine in a persons face. The "fallback" of "I'll switch it off" does not quite seem to happen. Suppose they want to see who they are talking to.

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On 04/11/2016 at 16:17, The Admiral said:

My wife has a Petzl E+LITE head light which allows switching to red from off, without going through white. I haven't tried it myself yet.

Ian

The OLD e-Lite (elastic strap and red plastic case) was great as the red had a very directional red beam that could help with navigation. The new one (extendable "thin wire strap") has a red LED that is diffuse and omnidirectional... so it dazzles others more and is next to useless for navigating around. I have both and the old one is my go to Astro light. This post got me thinking about making my own?!

 

cheers

 

peterW

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11 hours ago, PeterW said:

The OLD e-Lite (elastic strap and red plastic case) was great as the red had a very directional red beam that could help with navigation. The new one (extendable "thin wire strap") has a red LED that is diffuse and omnidirectional... so it dazzles others more and is next to useless for navigating around. I have both and the old one is my go to Astro light. This post got me thinking about making my own?!

 

cheers

 

peterW

Oh that's not good news Peter. I'm still waiting for my one to arrive.

Ian

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Sorry, I was surprised too as otherwise it's a very good light. The smaller form factor of the new one is better, but I can store spare batteries with the light in the old larger red plastic case..... 

 

PEter

 

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