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How 'light house' actually work ?

How does light from light house appear to a ship far away and close away ? As colour can change due to scattering distance so does all ships either far or close see only one colour from light house I.e white?

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Light houses worked by warning sailors of rocks/land by having a visible light there.

Air scatters light mainly in the blue part of the spectrum, so from far away the light might appear redder than the original source - although it didn't really matter to the sailors what frequency of light was visible.

Early lighthouses used a fire for the light source, presumably with a red/orange light - for example Egypt's Pharos of Alexandria, built around 280 BC.

Later lighthouses had a light source that rotated and focused the light into a narrow beam, so that it could be seen from further away.

You might want to look into Fresnel lens

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John Hunter
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