Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I did a test experiment for my science fair project on sun print images. I used the colors of the light spectrum as filters on a plastic sheet covering the sun paper to see which color filter produced the clearest image. It turned out that the orange and green colors produced the strongest image on the paper after rinsing the paper in water and the red, yellow, blue and purple produced no image at all. I don't understand why orange and green were the clearest images?
Thanks! Petunia

I am afraid I don't know why those colors would be particularly good at creating an image on sun print paper.

However, you might want to check out the "make it your own" section of the project description, where it suggests that you try to see if UV light is necessary for the reaction. If you discover that UV light *is* necessary, then there are a lot of possibilities about why certain orange and green inks might block more UV than the other colors, and this could be something else you could research (maybe try different orange and green dyes, for example).

Hi!
I have spent hours researching color scattering to see if that might have anything to do with the results. Would wavelengths and frequency and/or energy of certain colors have an impact? Since the sun is made up of all colors in the spectrum and the UV rays are only penetrating permanent color marker filters I started looking at the wavelengths. Yes, I tried painted lightbulbs and that did not work. Maybe the lightbulbs here in Honduras aren't the same! Thank you for any other insight that you might have!! Petunia