I've stared at plenty of plants under shop lights. No porblems I know of. I've also played ping pong and pool under them and worked in the shop. Again, no problem. I wouldn't stare at the lights directly for long, but I doubt that would be a problem either.

I have some teensy snapdragon and petunia seedlings I keep checking. Trying to spot those itsy bitsy sprouts just MIGHT do in my eyes :)

Oh, no need to joke about going blind. If it wasn't for the surgery that I had 12 years ago, I'd be blind now. I'm very lucky that the US has the best health care system in the world, well at least has now, and was able to do experimental surgery on me and save my sight.
Rick

Sorry, just hit a hot spot for me.
Rick

No, I'm sorry. I was just trying to express my enthusiasm.

I meant to offend no one.

Fluorescent lights shouldn't make you blind. I lived under them for 30 years on the job and I have great vision.

Wear sunglasses when looking at seedlings...LOL

daylilydude... thank you for catching on to my attempt at humor.

Robeb,
Sorry again. I was just in one of those moods yesterday. Too much work and not enough time to work in my garden. I'd be out there right now if it wasn't raining.... I have to get the fence up before the deer eat the strawberries that are starting to take off.
Rick

No problem Rick.
Good luck with those strawberries and your tomatoes.

certain flourescents can give people with epilepsy seizure problems.

floursecents can drive some on the autistic spectrum nuts (negative behaviors, lack of concentration or attempting to flee). Even the ones manufacturers claim cycle too fast for the eye to pick up seem to bother them.

But it also can be the sounds of the ballasts that drive people nuts. That's not blindness that just annoying.

unless you fall into one of those groups you probably dont need to worry about it.

I'm so sorry to hear that. Wear protective
eyewears so you will not get blind. It is
very hard to be blind so be cautious enough.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tom Ford Sunglasses

I'm a gaffer (lighting director) and camera operator in the film and video industry and use the 3 main light sources, tungsten (household light), HMI (mimics daylight in color temp) and fluorescent, from 20,000 watt brutes down to 10 watt pencil thin fluorescents for lighting movies and commercials. The fluorescents are on the low end of the scale. The shop lights you can buy at Home Depot are generally around 40 watts per tube, very low power. While it's not good practice to stare directly at a light source for a very long time eyeballing your seedlings won't be a major threat to your eyes. The eyes are pretty smart. When the brain detects that the light is too bright the pupils close down, like the aperture in a camera lens to cut down on the amount of light coming in the eye. As the light level drops the pupils open up to allow more light to enter so you can see better at night. But that won't stop you from going blind if you look into an extremely bright light source like the sun. So I wouldn't worry about checking out your seedlings even for long periods of time.

Mulio did bring up an interesting point though. The 4 foot $15.00 Home Depot shop lights use cheap ballasts which can cause a buzzing which we can hear and a flicker from the light tube, which in most cases we can't see. But movie film cameras and some people prone to epileptic seizures can see or detect it. By contrast the portable 4 foot fluorescent fixtures I use for lighting on the set cost $1500.00 each. No buzzing or flicker there!

There are gazzillions of ballasts...............ok....thousands
Lots are rated for low interference etc.

I have to replace this one .... E232Z12-3@Radionic

Robeb, you gave me my chuckle for the day.