Indoor Range Lighting

[RMcR]

During the winter I shoot smallbore at an indoor range in Davenport, Washington. It's your typical old small-town 50-foot indoor range. During the past couple of years we finished the concrete floor, the last 12 feet next to the targets was gravel, and we upgraded the lighting. The lighting now consists of three rows of high output fluorescent (T8) fixtures, one above the shooting line and two more lines evenly spaced down the range, and one row of LED spot lights about 10 feet in front of the targets. It was a great upgrade and significantly increased the light on the targets.

Since completing these upgrades, all of us older shooters are occasionally seeing a double image of the target through our scopes. It kind of looks like mirage, but it doesn't shimmer like mirage, it appears as a somewhat blurry but stable, double image placing one version of the target roughly one target line higher than the other on an A-17 target.

Any ideas on what is causing that? Could it be different wavelengths of light conflicting with each other? Could it actually be mirage caused by the heat system?

 

[SEM]

I shoot at an indoor range with a not so well planed lighting system, I get a similar oddity wearing certain shooting glasses looking through Burris handgun scopes, only Burris well at least of the scope makers I have to compare to, at 15 to 25 yards more noticeable at 25, The targets appear clouded and look like they are shaking not quite like mirage. I can still get great groups I just have to trust myself and not focus on the shaking, I think it might be the frequency of the fluorescent fixtures

Oh yeah by the way I HATE LED lighting especially from on coming cars in the CITY at night totally unnecessarily blindingly bright, Don't like it indoors either, BURN more coal or what ever, Incandescent is the most comforting light next to the sun

 

[JMayo]

On ara there is a light attached to each target stand shining directly on each target. Regular (NOT super bright) lighting in the building.

At my club there are florescent lights over the targets and along the lanes are turned off during shooting.

Sounds like some kind of reflection or refraction happening in the scope.

 

[divingin]

If you want to save money, replace the fluorescent tubes with LED. Make sure to get a model with frosted, not clear, lenses, as that evens out hotspots you can get from the clear lenses. The LED tubes can be had in any color temp from the garish blue (think car headlights) through cool to warm white (warm white is about a 60 watt incandescent bulb color) and even more reddish if desired. The biggest advantages are lifespan and impact resistance.