Colours in moonlight

Explain why it is more difficult to see colours in moonlight than in sunlight.

Sun emitts lights of every wavelength.Red,orange,yellow,green,blue and violet are the visible lights.Every colour is found in sunlight and each colour is recognized by own wavelength.Human eye can detect colors whose wavelengths range from 380nm to750nm.

Moonlight is the reflection of sunlight.So moonlight is the same colour as sunlight but lot dimmer.Sensitivity to colours of eyes is greater than light intensity.To human eyes, colours appear desaturated when the light is very low.Moonlight gives insufficient light for eyes to perceive color.Light is focused on the retina of the eye by the lens.Retina cotains two types of nerve cells-rods and cones.Rods deals with brightness and cone is with colours.The sensitive cells react to light and their interaction sends message to the brain.Then brain can indicate colours.Rods detect intensity of light and can do anything for detecting colours.Cone is sensitive to different wavelengths or colours.The rods sense intensity and are unable to detect colours, they can operate at very low intensities of light.On the other side, the cones detect colors apart but need quite high intensities of light .

So the difference of light intensity and eye function causes difficult to see colours in moonlight than in sunlight.