Night sailing - chart plotter brightness

[Laxlife]

That Raymarine thread dates back 3 years to 2018. I really like the low light capability of my new Axiom 9+ RV. Lots of flexibility in screen brightness now as well as color palettes for making charts night vision friendly. When I sail at night I like to have the screen sleep after 15 seconds. That is plenty of time to update my situational awareness and then I am back to a dark screen. Don’t text and drive right? Same logic applies to sailing at night with your head staring at a screen no matter how dim the brightness. The danger and wonder is out there in the dark rushing by—not in the chart plotter.

[carstendenmark]

OP here - thank you so much for all inputs !

About dimming of a screen/display by a cover :
If not focusing completely on RED, but dimmed, how about a grey tinted acrylic sheet cover ?
Then the colours are there, but the light is dimmed.
See sample.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by carstendenmark

OP here - thank you so much for all inputs !

About dimming of a screen/display by a cover :
If not focusing completely on RED, but dimmed, how about a grey tinted acrylic sheet cover ?
Then the colours are there, but the light is dimmed.
See sample.

A neutral density filter is much nicer to use than red and allows the preservation of colour coded information. It can be a good choice in situations where you need detailed electronic information and are prepared to sacrifice some dark adaptation.

However, it is important to realise that dark adaptation is a slow process so even after not looking at the screen, the best levels of dark adaption will take around 15mins to recover.

The correct level of red light will reduce or even eliminate this lag, but the quality and ease of use and speed of information from the chartplotter will be significantly degraded.

In a situation where detailed information that can be processed rapidily is required from the radar/electronic chart/AIS, then dull white light can be the best choice. However, sailboats travel at a slow speed so often it worth sacrificing high speed electronic data to preserve the best dark adaptation

Much depends on the circumstances, but the ability to have some electronic information while preserving the best dark adapation can be a very useful option and only red light will do this.

[mjoplin]

Check out the new version of Raymarine Lighthouse 3 on the Axiom+ or Axiom Pro models, day/night/extra dark night palettes that not only reset the colors on the device but also re-color the charts for night or deep night vision.

The palette changes and you also have full dim/brightness control over the backlighting. It works great!

[goboatingnow]

Interesting comment that red light is not effective for night vision but dim white is better. I didn’t know that