Dennis Hollingsworth

Off Center

Here is a snippet from a backyard astronomy site on how to see the stars:

Averted Vision

When you look directly at something, its image falls on your retina's fovea centralis. This spot is packed with bright-light-optimized cone cells and provides sharp resolution under strong illumination. But the fovea is fairly blind in dim light. So to see something faint, you have to look slightly away from it. Doing so moves the image of your target off the fovea and onto parts of the retina that have more rod cells, which see only in black and white but are more light-sensitive than the cones.

To see this effect at work, stare straight at a moderately faint star. It will disappear. Avert your gaze just a bit; there it is again.

I often think about how this works conceptually, how to catch the elusive idea by indirect means. Thinking with the rods, not the cones.

Painting with rods...