are all red dots' lenses colored?

[badbadtz560]

What I mean is ... I've been playin around w/ some toy red dots and.. well I guess a S.P.O.T. is a knockoff too... but are aimpoints and trijicons colored too? I'm pretty sure EOtech's are pretty clear

what I noticed is that all of them have various tints on them that would seem to suck for nighttime conditions... I'm talkin about the color it tints stuff when u look through it...

SPOT has a blue tint to it.. I have a toy one for airsoft that does blue'n green dot.. and it has a purple tint to it....

so what about aimpoints? do they look clear when u look through it? Is it colored because it's required for the red dot? Can anyone send a me a pic of what it looks like when looking through various red dot scopes?

this one's supposed to be an aimpoint.. and it's blue tinted it seems. Is that a real aimpoint?

 

[JohnKSa]

...tints on them that would seem to suck for nighttime conditions...

Here's an interesting experiment for you to try the next time at the range.

Put the lens cap on the front of the scope. NOT the end you look into, but rather the muzzle end. Turn on the scope and shoot the gun with both eyes open. You'll find that you don't need to see through the scope at all. You only need to be able to see the red dot as long as you're shooting with both eyes open at once. (Assuming you have normal vision and no significant strabismus.)

 

[rduckwor]

Lens components are typically coated with a thin film of metal to aid in clarity, and reflection of the laser that makes the dot.

RMD

 

[PO2Hammer]

The Reflex sights are blue green. Necessary to reflect the dot. Like the other poster said, with both eyes open you only need to see the dot with your sighting eye and the target with the other.

 

[Flyboy]

rduckwor nailed it. It's not a dye in the glass, but rather a coating on the lens. That coating substantially reduces the amount of light reflected by the surface of the glass, making the image brighter--believe it or not, despite the imparted color, it will actually improve low-light performance. There may also be a coating on one side to increase the reflectivity for the dot.

Go check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_coating for a primer on optical coatings.