On Wednesday 01 November 2006 17:51, Carlos E. R. wrote:
Yep, the periphery vision is more sensitive to light in general, as in searching for dim stars at night (astronomy 101).
That I didn't know.
Not sure this is really true. The reason for looking a little offset from something you want to see at night is because you can see anything where the optic nerve is on the retina. You need to offset a bit so that your focus isn't at the point of the optic nerve. (Aviation 101) "The non-central, peripheral part of the retina perceives light at low levels of illumination. It can actually perceive light at one thousandth the illumination needed by the fovea. Sometimes pilots complain that they may see an object at night only to have it disappear as they look directly at it. What happens is that they shift from peripheral dark- adapted vision to central day light vision. This part of the eye is not able to detect objects at low intensity. Another location of the retina which cannot see at all is the nearby "blind spot" where the optic nerve enters the retina. Looking at objects off center about 15 degrees will correct that loss of vision in this area."