Love that. That's fcuked!

Bet some clueless spark would think its uv lol

Sell it on as a UV

Thats so cool!, never seen one do that before!, looks like a fish tank tube.

It was very dim, not fit for its purpose.

Rare you see an 8W do this!

lol, the LED looks brighter

One of them T5 8W/WW tubes they're bad for this.

All in the name of eco-friendliness: put no mercury in.

Lamps may looks like this in an emergency lamp when there is leakage current from the battery.

I recently got an Italian Osram that runs like this, it won't always start from cold unless you force it by removing the starter though.

This looks effing siiick

I wonder how long a tube would last in this condition

I reckon the cathodes would burn up after not that long. It looks like a contaminated tube I had. Mercury starved ones tend to go pink and they would go on for quite a while like that.

Nah that looks mercury starved as contaminated tubes go hot/bright pink - mercury starved would be like that

I had a tube years ago which went dimmer and dimmer until it struggled to start without being in an enclosed fitting. Eventually the cathodes started to glow purple and they burned out. I will add the tube ran very hot despite being dim. It seemed to be contaminated, possibly a slight leak. Mercury starved tubes tend to go bright pink. The one in the photo certainly has something wrong with the gas mixture.

Fluorescent lamps in emergency lighting can glow like this if there is a current leakage from the battery.