Alit Nave Sky

Old English ā-lihtan, to alight — past-participle of alight. As a color modifier, alit implies a saturated-and-just-illuminated quality, the bright color of evening-streetlamp and Christmas-tree-light freshly-switched-on emission. Sits at the bright-and-warm end of the grid, parallel to aflame and aglow in usage.

Latin navis, ship. As a color modifier, nave implies a long-cathedral-central-aisle quality, the visual register of Romanesque-and-Gothic-cathedral hand-built central-aisle nave-and-clerestory-and-vault architectural surfaces under Gothic-and-Romanesque clerestory-and-stained-glass light. Sits at the modifier-and-architecture end of the grid, parallel to apse and aisle in usage.

The blue of a clear sky at noon — produced by Rayleigh scattering, the preferential dispersion of shorter wavelengths through atmospheric molecules. Air itself is colorless; the color we see is sunlight scattered toward our eyes by every cubic kilometer above. The reference shade is mid-latitude noon under a high pressure system: a clean, slightly green-shifted blue with the luminous depth of light scattered across an entire hemisphere of air.