thermal guy
Flashaholic
When I was in the service we used to take "cemlights" nightsticks and tape like 5-6 together and play night football. Oh the good old days
That's what makes the light stick useless - it's almost bright enough to light a page or plate of food if you hold it close, but then you're staring into the light source. Putting another order of magnitude of light within only half the radius resolves everything, clip it to your shirt pocket and everything in front of you is lit all the time..
I have one of those. It cuts the overall light down to about a third but it does help preserve night vision since you're not starring at it and it gives it an on/off function.They actually make a holster/holder for them that has a window in it so light only comes out of one side.
The infrared lightsticks were intended for military use. In order that infantry on the ground can signal their location to aircraft (equiped with night vision), without any visible light that gave away their position to enemy troops. Still used to an extent but less valuable these days as the enemy probably have night vision equipment.I have an old infrared light stick that's still in it's package. I bought it purely out of curiosity because I was wondering whether it produced near-IR or longwave IR. I have no idea what they were originally intended for.