I've always been fascinated by low-pressure sodium lights. Back in the old days there was a very small section of town that had low-pressure sodium streetlights that I would occasionally see. Recently, I've been seeing various experiments and demonstrations on youtube, plus some of the chosties here.
I've been looking on e-bay now and then to see if I could find a fixture suitable for playing with, and something recently appeared, an old Thomas darkroom safelight. This turned out to be one of those good e-bay experiences, it's exactly as described, packed well, shipped immediately, and complete with a little letter from the seller talking about his experience using the thing plus a copy of the owner's manual, and priced quite reasonably for the good condition.
I plugged it in, got a nice hum from the ballast, saw the pink glow of the tube starting, and left it to warm up while doing other things. (Tonight is estrogen night, so I was doing my injection.) I'd glance over at it from over across the room now and then, and it seemed to be getting brighter as it warmed up slowly. When I was done and finally walked over to it, all I could think was, holy crap this thing is bright! And it still wasn't fully warmed and up to full brightness!
Thing is, it's daytime, sunlight is filling the room, all the lights are on, to get the proper Monochromatic Experience I need to wait for night. This arrived today on [checks], uh, the summer solstice, so, yeah, that will be some hours from now.
Turning the room around you and everything in it grayscale (orange-scale?) is the weirdest thing!
I was just giggling holding up everything I can think of that I know is garishly colored and it's all just grayscale!
We've all seen lots of black & white photos and that's familiar and ordinary, but grab a magazine or a book full of color photos and it looks like totally normal B&W, then turn on a white light and bam full color!
That box you know is blue next to the one that's mostly red? Look the same! Garish athletic shorts in green and blue? Garish athletic top in pinks and greens? All just indistinguishable shades of 589.something nanometers!
