Stan, I cannot give you much in the way of references because most of my books on vision were purchased by my employers and remained in their possession when I left the companies. I did however keep my copy of the "RCA Electro-Optics Handbook" RCA Corp. 1974. Chapter 5 of that book covers the eye response to visible light. Since it is a handbook it is mostly tables, graphs, and definitions without much in the way of explanatory text. Brian gave you enough references to keep you busy so I don't feel too bad about not being able to supply much in that regard. As Brian says, the subject can get quite complicated. It involves not only the basic physics and chemistry of the detection of light by the retina, but the properties of the detector cells (rod and cones), their interconnections, and the human brain's analysis of the data coming from the eye. The images that you perceive from your eyes are influenced by how the brain functions and what it has learned over time, so it is not just like a camera (think optical illusions). You have probably seen various optical illusions that are basically spatial in nature, but there are color ones as well that are less widely known to the general public, perhaps color after-images are best known. Tom ----- Original Message ----- From: "cvsc1" <cvsc1@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 7:19 AM Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: color is not important was Re: How deep can you see? > > Thanks Brian, > I will look into these. > All of my reference materials state that rods do not perceive color. > I have not read about sensitivity of rods to specific wavelengths. > What I have read speaks of intensity levels, but not the ability to increase rod sensitivity without bleaching. > > Stan > -- > See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please > send personal replies to the author, not the list. > > -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.