Playing With Black Light

I was just looking around the internet for some cool stuff, and I found something that catches my eye. I found black light.

A blacklight (or often black light), also referred to as a UV-A light, Wood’s lamp, or simply ultraviolet light, is a lamp that emits long-wave (UV-A) ultraviolet light and not much visible light.

 

One type of lamp has a violet filter material, either on the bulb or in a separate glass filter in the lamp housing, which blocks most visible light and allows through UV, so the lamp has a dim violet glow when operating. Blacklight lamps which have this filter have a lighting industry designation that includes the letters “BLB”. This stands for “blacklight blue”, which is a contradiction in that they are the type that does not look blue.

A second type of lamp produces ultraviolet but does not have the filter material, so it produces more visible light and has a blue color when operating. These tubes are made for use in “bug zapper” insect traps, and are identified by the industry designation “BL”.

But I don’t have a blacklight. So I made my own from the internet (man! I can’t live without the internet). 

 

Let’s test it by using highlighters.

It worked!

But I found this: Wikipedia says: “Scorpions are also known to glow a vibrant blue-green when exposed to certain wavelengths of ultraviolet light such as that produced by a black light, due to the presence of fluorescent chemicals in the cuticle. One fluorescent component is now known to be beta-carboline. A hand-held UV lamp has long been a standard tool for nocturnal field surveys of these animals. Fluorescence occurs as a result of sclerotisation and increases in intensity with each successive instar. This fluorescence may have an active role in scorpion light detection.”

And I have one! Let’s try it.

I collected this on November 2016. It’s about 12 cm which is quite small.

I wish I have another one to show you how I pinned it.

Nope, it didn’t work. Maybe because the scorpion is dead or I need to use a real black light.

The next thing I wanted to do is to put the highlighter’s ink in water and I would like to compare it with water.

Let’s do it!

It didn’t work well like I thought but at least it’s glowing nicely. Let’s compare it with the water.

Plain water looks nice too.

Hope you enjoyed this if you did, drop a like on the bottom ↓ 😀

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklight

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpion