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Red LED light / lamp?

Sunwind

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yeti monster

yeti monster

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You can get red lenses for maglites. Or, if you are powering from a 12v supply, try a tail lamp of a Land-Rover, these make excellent safe lights, I put one up in the cab of my Landy pick-up to allow nocturnal searching and map reading without spoiling night vision.

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Breakintheclouds

Breakintheclouds

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This isn't a specific recommendation, I'm afraid, but in general a great place to look is army surplus stores. The military are almost as keen as astronomers to look after their night vision and I've seen various torches and lamps in my local surplus shop.

For example, for about £2 I got a useful torch with inbuilt red and green filters. I know what the red one is for, but I'm still not sure about the green. Is it for shining in your enemies' eyes to ruin their night vision? For temporarily blinding nearby astronomers whilst the military try out their flying saucers? :D

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Sunwind

Sunwind

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I found one of the astronomy sites selling a red led torch I guess it will have to do.

I was wondering if there is any software out there that people use to turn their laptops into "night vision mode" and put a red overlay on the screen? similar to what Stellarium does except it only works within the program itself, if you alt-tabbed to do something while out with your scope it would ruin the night vision right?

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acey

acey

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I'm trying to find preferably a small red led desk lamp, battery powered

Bike rear lamp (mine cost £1) mounted on some bent coat-hanger wire. Works for me.

I also found a mini battery-powered desk lamp (TK Max £2.99) and put a couple of layers of red polythene over the light, but the flexible neck is flimsy and it's not so good.

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alfingido

alfingido

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Milletts do a Eurohike head torch with a flip down red cover for about £15. It's small enough to wear all the time. I bought a red led conversion kit for my mini maglight a few years ago. It is superb and you can unscrew the top and use it as a lamp. Batteries seem to last forever.

Oh, and the Army use green lamps for map reading...... and blue ones for identifying body fluids!

Allan

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Astro_Baby

Astro_Baby

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I was going to post a kind of mini-review on it but I'll do it here for now....

Its the Orion-REDBEAM SP

A truly fantastic piece of kit and in my humble opinion the best astronomy accessory I have ever bought. Its a red light torch that winds-up.

You can have two settings - with either 3 or 5 LEDS depending on how bright you want things. You NEVER run out of power or need batteries. A 3 minute winding will keep it running up to 20 minutes. Bit less if its cold bit more if its warm.

As if that weren't enough you can even plug a mobile phone in and charge your phone from its wind-up power in an emergency AND it has a small bubble compass. The compass isn't exactly the worlds greatest but its passable.

Its totally brilliant, small enough to slip in a pocket, ergonomic to fit in the hand well. Quite rugged.

I coughed up £14 for it and at the time thought - its expensive but hey ho - I have since revised that opinion to believe its the best bit of astro accessory kit I ever paid our for.

No batteries to shell out for, no worries when I take it out about whether the batteries are ok - its great and if you can find one and dont mind coughing up £14 I'd say go for it. Yeah I know you can get a cheaper torch - how many batteries will you eat. How many times will you be out in a dark field and run out of power ?

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Astro_Baby

Astro_Baby

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Yes it fades slowly as the power starts to go but when you wind it it goes back to full power and fades again. On the 3 LED setting its quite faint anyway - well depending on how far away you are I guess.

My only bleat with it is that it has a small green LED to show you wna its taking charge when your winding it. I wish that had put a red one on. Its not the end of the world as the gree LEDis in the bit your and grips the torch by under normal conditions so you'd never see it. It only comes on during winding not in normal operation.

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Capricorn

Capricorn

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If you wander to a Wilkinson's then you can buy a cheap wind-up torch. They are white light but find some red film or buy some red glass paint from a hobby shop and apply. Worth a try for £3-4.

Another I can find is a rear cycle wind up lamp. Think you may have to buy front and rear together.:

Front and Rear Wind Up LED Bike Lights - Cable Universe

Slight concern here is that all pictures show the winding handle of the front item, not seen one yet of the rear unit.

Suspect a cycle shop would be a good place to start for a red led lamp.

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oceanheadted

oceanheadted

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I have a coleman camping lantern and built a red filter from some toilet roll core and red acetate sheet. The batteries are rechargeable and it runs for ages.

I originally bought the lantern for the house as we were having a lot of power cuts, but since I bought the lamps the power cuts have stopped!:D

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