A few months ago, one of the "learning" channels-- Discovery Channel, History Channel, whatever-- did a program in which they touched on why pirates wore an eye patch even if they had two good eyes. It seems that when the boarded a ship they wanted to capture, they had to scurry down below to get to the majority of the crew. The hold of the ship was dark, and coming down from a sunlit deck put them at a huge disadvantage. So they wore a patch over one eye so when they got below, they could remove the patch and see well enough in the dark hold to fight effectively. Sounds odd-- maybe it's true. I don't know if any pirates left us any research on the topic! Richard Harshaw Cave Creek, AZ -----Original Message----- From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Workman, Brian (AZ76) Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 1:02 PM To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Telrad stellar limit =20 > exposure of one eye to bright light leaves the other other eye unaffected (at least as regards pupil size) is incorrect.=20 This is interesting. When I get up early to run or ride my bike and I want to preserve my dark adaptation as long as possible, or if I get up in the middle of the night and go to the fridge for a bottle of water, I'll close one eye when I open the fridge. Then once I close the fridge door, I can still see my way through the eye that was closed, while the one that was open is temporarily "blinded".=20 The key here is that you said "unaffected". I don't know to what extent the protected eye was affected, only that it is relatively still dark adapted. I'll have to think up some way to test this in a measureable way. -- 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.