"There is something about flying a kite at night that is so unwholesome" - Marge Simpson
ive kited at night a few times, glow sticks impair your vision as that is all you can see. its easier to see your kite and other kiters without glowsticks on your kite.
i used to night kite at yeppoon main beach with a few of the guys, on the odd occasion that the sailing club were feeling generous they would put their big spotlight on the water to help us out, other than that we just used to put glowsticks on our kites and board handles..
always worked a treat for us, not sure how others would find it though..
Best conditions for night kiting are when you have light overcast conditions and you are near a large city. The light from the city will disperse through the clouds for up to 50km giving you an evenly distributed light source (kind of like a softbox used for portrait photography) and your eyes gradually get used to the low light.
You would think full moon conditions would be good, and it is when the moon is behind you, but unfortunately, when you're kiting toward the moon, the light shimmers off the water and makes it nearly impossible to see the waves coming at you and you inevitably get knocked off the board by the crest of the wave over and over.
Full moon with light overcast clouds to disperse the moonlight also works, but it's usually either too much cloud so the light doesn't get through, or too little cloud and too much moonlight gets through.
I was longboarding along West Coast Drive the night before I posted this and the moon was shimmering off the ocean and I thought "I wonder...?" but as Robbo said it's probably not a good idea, I do know what you mean though. Sometimes the sky looks red or purple at night from the reflected light.
