February 3, 2026
Martin’s eyes continue to improve and sunrises continue to be spectacular. Martin is constantly being surprised by how much light and color the thick polycarbonate lenses of his glasses blocked.
Martin suspects that the unusual pink to the south couldn’t be seen with his glasses on. This was shot at 6:59 AM.
The pink was very quick. This was shot at 7:02 AM and its already pretty much changed to orange.
Now for a surprise, Martin couldn’t see that this wine bottle stopper was pink! The prescription glasses knocked out enough color so that he wasn’t sure it was pink.
An even bigger surprise, Martin couldn’t see the blue microwave display at all. We have no idea why Panasonic choose this deep a blue for their display.
Here’s what causes the problems, the transmission spectrum of polycarbonate. This only approximates what’s actually used in high-refractive index glasses. Those use a polycarbonate varient with a refractive index of 1.74, but Martin could not find that particular variety of polycarbonate’s transmission spectrum.
As you can see, approximately 10% of the light is blocked for the whole visible spectrum. There’s a dip to 20% of the middle reds being blocked, which explains the wine bottle stopper and a fall off to about 90% blockage before the end of the visible blue.