CFL and lightbulb temperatures

sophiecentaur

The problem is that you can't really specify the subjective effect of a line spectrum illuminant in a single figure. You can project the CFL light onto a screen and 'match it' to a hot tungsten filament. BUT that doesn't tell you at all, what coloured objects will actually look like under that illumination. There are many different combinations of lines that can 'match' a tungsten filament but the gaps between the lines mean that there is no information about the reflectivity of a pigment in those gaps.
The use of Colour temperature in photography is a rather different matter. The analysis of the three colour sensors is essentially, broad band and is matched fairly well to the eye's analysis. Hence you can do a fair job of colour correcting for different lighting conditions when the illuminant is a basic black body spectrum. If you try it with fluorescent lighting it tends to fall to pieces and, at least on cameras I have used, doesn't commit itself to a 'temperature'. It just gives you a set of options for the least worst result. (Which sort of proves my original point, actually)

phyzguy

There's a graph on page 97 showing the electron temperature as a function of radius. This shows it is more like 12,000 K. I got the 20,000K from the table on page 72, which is discussing the temperature of the tail of the electron distribution. Be aware that temperatures of discharge plasmas is usually a complex subject, since the distribution is usually not Maxwellian, and the electron and ion temperatures are usually different. But no matter how you look at it, it is quite hot.