I can see the light! Wait, no. Wait, yes. Wait, what?!

Here's a fun trick: Have someone sit in a chair looking straight ahead. From behind them, move a brightly colored object gradually around into their field of vision. Ask them to say "Now" when they see it. Then ask them what color it is.

Ditto dmenet. Simply put, you can see dimmer objects out of your peripheral vision than you could by looking directly. Stargazers take advantage of that fact by using a technique known as http://starizona.com/acb/basics/observing_tips.aspx.

Cones, which give you color vision, are in the center of your retina; rods, which give you black and white vision but are more sensitive to light, are around the outside edges.

Dmenet is right. If you've ever been in a rural area at night and looked at the stars, you've probably noticed the same effect. They're much less bright when you look directly at them than when you see them from the corner of your eye. I suspect nothing is wrong with your eyes—especially because it works for two people.

Yep -- you can do the star thing at night yourself -- when stars are first starting to come out, go outside and look up, you'll notice stars out of the corner of your eye but when you focus on them, you won't be able to see them. The cells that do vision are called photoreceptors. There are two types: rods and cones, and they are distributed differently, and have different jobs. -Cones are mostly focused in the middle of your vision. These do color perception and have a much higher acuity for detail viewing. -Rods are absent in the exact center and come up around the periphery of your vision. These are much more sensitive to light, but have poorer acuity, and can't see color. http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~avery/course/3400/vision/rod_cone_distribution2.jpg a graph of the distribution -- the fovea is the center of your vision, where it's in perfect focus. The gap a little to the right of the fovea is the blind spot, where all the nerves leave your eye so there's no room for any photoreceptors (which is an entirely different story). Basically, this is very normal and expected for a dim light.

You guys (and or girls ;) are awesome! I figured it was something like this, but hadn't heard of it before and had no idea how to search for it. Now that I think of it, I have noticed this before while star gazing a bit. I never really thought it about until now though. Perfect chance to learn something new. Thanks again!

You have more light sensitive cells in your periphery then in the center of your eye. Did you mean motion sensitive, rather than light sensitive? Because I'm pretty sure its motion sensitive...hence the "blinking".

I think the blinking of the light could have played an important role, too. A long time ago, my mate and I rescued a little, totally black neighborhood kitten which the family right next door to us ended up adopting, and for years, until they finally moved, whenever I came home on my bicycle and it was out, that cat would run and gambol on the grass of its yard, then my yard next to my front wheel as I rode past its house to my sidewalk, where I would put the bike down and pet it on my steps for a while before I went into the house. One day I came home after dark on an overcast day when the streetlight in front of my house was burned out and very few lights in anyone's house happened to be on. I had no light on my bike and the only light I could see around me was some glimmering on the crystal planes in the sidewalk from car headlights more than a block away. But even though their yard and my yard were totally dark to me, I could somehow still see the motion of the cat running along beside me despite the fact I couldn't see any shapes whatever and had no perception of light at all from that direction (and the abstracted motion was eerily beautiful, by the way, as if a chunk of pure darkness had come alive in the likeness of a cat). When I got to my walkway and paused for a moment, a car drove by, and there was the cat sitting on the step looking up at me like 'why aren't you down here petting me the way you always do?'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_cells are also the primary motion detectors of the eye. I was far from being fully dark adapted at the time of this incident, so I suppose I can't really assert from my own experience that this is the case, but I bet that motion detection is actually more sensitive than light perception out there on the edge.