I have some nods with older, like 2003, aviation tubes in them. No gain and non-gated.

Whenever I look past a bright thing in a pitch dark room, like an LED on a turned-off television, non NVG reticule, or an alarm clock, I get these black lines that streak across wherever the bright thing was as I move my head around.

The black lines fade away fairly quickly. Well less than a minute in most cases.

It only happens in very dark situations. If I have decent ambient light, starlight, illuminator throw, it doesn't happen when I look past the same objects.

Now, I realize these are older tech tubes. Non gated. I used to have some OMNI VII Pinnacle tubes with great specs that didn't have this problem.

Is this something I should worry about? Like are they just aging? Or is that a normal factor of tubes from that era?

Perfectly normal, I have a newer autogated tube that does it all the time. My older non gated tube never does it. Anyways it wont hurt a thing.

Just don't stare at the light for a long time.

My recent, auto-gated gear does the same. Even the internal reflections streak along with the point source of the light sometimes.
Don't worry about it. But don't stare through such a bright light when you can help it.
Have fun with the equipment .

Sounds good, all. Thanks.

photocathode electron depletion

Basically black magic voodoo curse

It has to do with things with alloys and compositions and things with... molecular structures.

Thanks, all.