AK-Dilate (Dilating your Pupils for DSO)

Recently I had my annual eye examination. I had the pupil dilation test (all ok) but thought I look in to the drug used to artificially dilate the pupils.

The prescribed medicine is brand name is called AK-Dilate.

Here's a link to the details of the medicine, etc.: http://www.drugs.com/cons/ak-dilate-ophthalmic.html

My Doctor said the dilation last anywhere from 4 to 8 hours with one dosage

It occurs to me that with proper administration, etc., you could use this medication to speed up and prolong the dilation of your pupils when observing DSO's; then again any abuse may cause serious problems.

People with night vision problems are often prescrbied this drug, as well as other similar products; as such, I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with this medicine and what was the long term effect.

Byron P.

Hi Mydriatic drug will dilate the pupils, but I would read into it carefully. Are there long terms affects of these drugs with frequent use.

Also eye drops should be put in carefully, there are techniques to avoid eye infection. Extreme caution has to be taken if a person has glaucoma.

I know that there is an opthamologist on Astromart, hopefully he will comment. I have often thought of doing this myself.

Only my two cent.
Craig

I Can see the attraction but sounds risky to me....side effects, long term etc

Byron W Pearce II said:

Recently I had my annual eye examination. I had the pupil dilation test (all ok) but thought I look in to the drug used to artificially dilate the pupils.

The prescribed medicine is brand name is called AK-Dilate.

Here's a link to the details of the medicine, etc.: http://www.drugs.com/cons/ak-dilate-ophthalmic.html

My Doctor said the dilation last anywhere from 4 to 8 hours with one dosage

It occurs to me that with proper administration, etc., you could use this medication to speed up and prolong the dilation of your pupils when observing DSO's; then again any abuse may cause serious problems.

People with night vision problems are often prescrbied this drug, as well as other similar products; as such, I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with this medicine and what was the long term effect.

Byron P.

I see little advantage in dilating your pupils.

- Your eyes dilate quickly to some reasonable level, 5mm or greater so for the vast majority of one's observing, that is plenty. A more dilated pupil would only be useful for the single widefield, low power view with a very fast scope, it might be of use in my NP101 with a 31mm Nagler which produces a 5.7mm exit pupil or my 12.5 inch F/4.06 (F/4.67 with a Paracorr) which produces a 6.6 mm exit pupil but then again it might not be.

Ask yourself how often you observe with exit pupils greater than 5mm... I do a fair amount of the time but most of the time I am in the 1mm - 4mm range.

- To really see the DSOs, the faint ones, high magnifications with small exit pupils are almost always the best strategy. If I want to see 12th magnitude galaxies in an 80mm scope, I need to use relatively high magnifications with small, under 2mm exit pupils.

- Dark adaption is not about pupil dilation. Your pupils dilate very quickly and only provide a minor contribution of the 10,000x to 1,000,000x increase in sensitivity possible. Dark adaptation is about the chemical processes going on in your eye that allow the rods do their best.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptation_%28eye%29

Jon Isaacs