What is color temperature?

The whitest of all un- derwater lights avail- able at 10,000 kelvin, creating drinking- like-water illumina- tion around the boat. For comparison, a competitor’s litera- ture claims their Xe- non light outputs a mere 5100 Kelvin col- or, only half as white. Higher up the scale, Blue light from an LED penetrates through the water with spectacular results as it is a pure color. Blue light paci- fies fish, as opposed to white which over- whelms the eyes of a tuna or swordfish. Blue is a mecca for nightlife activities. Blue appears to be very bright, as the cones in the human eye are most sensitive to blue light as it has the shortest wavelength. Green another pure color great for night fishing and has a wavelength similar to blue light thus has ex- ceptional light trans- mission through the water. The new Super Cyan LEDs move into a new category for underwater illumi- nation. A turquoise hue resting between the blue and green lights, Cyan is the latest color from OceanLED. Visible light is commonly described by its color temperature. It is well known that when an object, such as a lump of metal, is heated, it glows; first a dull red, then as it becomes hotter, a brighter red, then bright orange, then a brilliant white. Although the brightness varies from one material to another, the spectral distribution (color) of the glow is essentially universal for all materials, and varies depending on the temperature. This is a depiction of the color temperature scale of visible light measured in degrees Kelvin.As shown, blue is the “hotter” color, while red is actually the “cooler” color. This is the opposite of the associations both colors have taken on, with “red” as “hot”, and “blue” as “cold”. The sky at midday is around 12,000 Kelvin, underwater lighting applications at best attempt to replicate this, so the higher the color temperature the more penetrative and effective the light will be. Other underwater lighting companies are doing their best to keep up with the colored underwater lights produced from OceanLED by placing crude filters over the lens. This filter not only blocks out the unwanted colors, i.e. blocking up to 2/3 of the visible light therefore reducing the light output and making the light fixture run much hotter resulting in dramatically shortening the bulb life.
White is a combination of all colors. Super Blue, Super Green, and Super Cyan are pure colors.