Quote:
Originally Posted by drcy
Don't stare directly at the light (as in shine it in your eyes), but blacklights are no more dangerous, and perhaps even less, than sunlight (which contains UV light). Sunlight, of course, can cause cancer if you're in it too long.
Blacklight is longwave UV-- that's what you have and is the most benign. Shortwave UV (which you don't have) is the more dangerous. However, even then, collectors are just using shortwave UV for a relatively short duration and shining it on objects not themselves, so it won't cause harm.
Shortwave UV lights are a lot more expensive that longwave, which is why I know what you have (at those prices) are the longwave.
An interesting factoid is that shortwave UV doesn't exist naturally on earth and only exists here when its manufactured, such as with a shortwave light. The sun and stars emit it, but it's blocked by the earth's atmosphere.
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One of the ones sold for Stamp collectors that has both long and shortwave will eventually be handy. Some things react to both, some only one or the other.
I priced out replacing my old dual wave light
It's on the list of stuff to repair now.