HID lights for '98 Magna

[hootmon]

Found a link to a couple of really good lighting articles. If you are considering changing to a new high powered headlight these are really worth reading. I'm just going to link to the first, then you can read the others there, but I would recommend reading the "Bad Blues", "Good Blues", and "Superwhite" articles.
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/blue/bad/bad.html

[lragan]

This is good info, Hoot.  I gotta go look at Maggie's bulb -- I may have fallen for the scam.

What I haven't seen in the write-up is the "temperature" rating.  I am aware that higher temperatures produce light that has higher frequencies (lower wavelength) in it.  This is the basis of optical pyrometry widely used in the steel industry to judge the temperature of the melt, for example. 

So I suppose higher "temperature" ratings simply signify a larger portion of the light at the high frequency end of the spectrum.  As Daniel points out, not necessarily good.

Lumens the man said, is the measure of interest.  Lumens out for power in appears to the the efficiency measure of interest. 

I suspect Maggie will get a different bulb before the day is out...

[lragan]

So I took the bulb out to look at it.  The ones I am using have a faint blue tint, but they pass green and red light without noticeable attenuation (as tested by two lasers and "eyeballing" the dot through the bulb and direct onto the workbench -- yes I know this is not very scientific, but I don't own photosensors for these wavelengths, and don't intend to buy any). 

So I am going to stay with these bulbs as long as they last.  I don't think they are blue enough to make much difference.  Perhaps bias the "temperature" reading up slightly, but nothing more.