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After noticing that red lights (e.g., in neon signs) look really sharp while blue ones look blurry, I searched for the cause of this effect. Apparently it's due to chromatic aberration. In a nutshell, the refraction index of the lens is dependent on the wavelength of the light. This results in the failure of focusing all colors on the same convergence point.

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What I don't completely understand is the following. If white light is a mix of all colors, why don't we see a blur/glow that becomes bluer - and dimmer - the further it is from the light source? Why do white neon signs, for example, have a completely white blur around them when looked from a distance?

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    $\begingroup$ Are you talking about "as seen by the human eye"? Lots of research shows that our brains filter, invent, and distort what we see--especially the colors we perceive. $\endgroup$
    – Jake Watrous
    Commented Feb 11, 2017 at 4:49
  • $\begingroup$ I don't think that chromatic aberration is the major reason why red neon signs are blurry. Especially since they are approximately monochromatic. $\endgroup$
    – BeamLauncher
    Commented Feb 11, 2017 at 19:21

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