Crown of Ash
#a1a9a9
A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is light — black text sits on it comfortably, white text does not.
Hex
#a1a9a9
RGB
161, 169, 169
OKLCh
72.8% 0.009 197.0°
CIELAB (D50)
68.6, -2.9, -1.0
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 10 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it — this part of the space is crowded, and the names here are finer distinctions than most people make.
- It uses only 7% of the chroma available at this lightness and hue — there is a far more vivid version of this colour inside sRGB.
- As text on white it measures APCA Lc 47.2; on black, Lc -54.8. The sign is the polarity, which the WCAG ratio discards.
- Built into an eleven-step scale, 10 of the 10 adjacent pairs stay ΔE00 2 apart — see the ramp.
- tritanopia shifts it by ΔE00 12.2 — no blue cone.
Text on this colour
White text
2.40:1 — fails AA
Black text
8.76:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at8.76:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#717878 is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.
The same colour, with one cone missing
As you see it
#a1a9a9
protanopia
#a8a8a9 · ΔE00 4.2
deuteranopia
#a7a7a9 · ΔE00 4.5
tritanopia
#a5a5bf · ΔE00 12.2
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isShiny Armour at ΔE00 0.525: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Shiny ArmourΔE00 0.525 · #a1a9a8
- Cloud MountainΔE00 0.803 · #a4abab
- Silent FilmΔE00 1.416 · #9fa5a5
- Winter FlannelΔE00 1.562 · #9ca4a5
- CastlegateΔE00 1.745 · #a0a5a5
- StatuaryΔE00 1.77 · #9ea4a5
- Pale SlateΔE00 1.914 · #9fabad
- Gull GreyΔE00 1.921 · #a4adb0
- GrisΔE00 1.962 · #a5a9a8
- Portsmouth BayΔE00 1.981 · #a1adad
- Coastal Sea FogΔE00 2.033 · #9ea4a6
- Chance of RainΔE00 2.119 · #a0a6a9
10 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.