Why is red light used for night vision? Why not yellow or other colours of light?

Question

Why is red light used for night vision? Why not yellow or other colours of light?

In: Technology

Answer 1

While I don’t know the biological reason why, the colour red doesn’t compromise your own night vision. After your eyes have adjusted to the dark you don’t tend to recoil from the light, cover your eyes, re-adjust to the light etc when the light that gets turned on is red.

So if you need someone to move between looking at some kind of screen and then immediately being in a dark place (eg: outside at night), or vice versa, that screen should be red to take advantage of this effect.