A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
975 entries
averted vision
The technique of looking slightly away from a faint star or object to see it more clearly, placing its image on the more sensitive rod cells at the edge of the retina rather than the less sensitive cone cells at the center. You see the faintest things in the sky by not looking directly at them.
Etymology
From Latin avertere (“to turn away,” from ab- “away” + vertere “to turn”) + vision, from Latin visio (“sight,” from videre “to see”). Literally “turned-away sight” — seeing by looking away.