Invisible Light

Ever wonder what it's like to see infrared and ultraviolet light? Our eyes cannot detect such wavelengths of light just outside the range of visible light. Yet cameras can detect both types of light!

Check out this picture (Left LED is infrared, the right LED is ultraviolet)

The dark LED on the left is an Infrared LED. the pinkish/purplish white dot in the center is infrared. Here's a better picture taken from above with the UV light off:

In real life, the IR LED doesn't look like it turned on at all. The dark plastic filters out everything except UV. It's only when you use a digital camera (phone cameras work just fine!) that you can "see" the light.

To try this at home: get a TV remote and look at the end of it with a camera as you press buttons. You'll see pulses of IR light!

The UV LED (or black light if you wish) does emit visible light in the violet range, so it appears to be a purple LED. However, when you look at it through a camera, you see that there's way more light to be had, which is why in a photo it seems to glow so brightly!

This one is a bit harder to try at home, but if you ever go to a party with black lights, try taking pictures of the black light bulbs!