I think that pretty much every MV lamp I have seen on a camera turns green, or if it is already green, a deep green, it does not matter what color it is there will be some green some where on the screen.  An example would be that at a bank I passed it looked like it had MV lamps though it had the normal phosphorus pinkish white, I then pulled out my iPod Touch and looked at it through the camera and it was completely green with no hint of white any where.  Why is this?

Smartphones aren't suitable for professional photography (Such as lighting), and the thinking of people that Instagram will causes the digital camera to become obsolete, because with one click it allows non professional photographers to turns their low quality pictures taken by smartphones, into a work of art, that aren't falls behind photos made by professional photographers, equipped with DSLRs and Photoshop is also (...).
The smartphones have a very little CMOS cencors, lacks many features of digital camreas that suitable for advanced photographing (Such as a white ballance, which can correct the color of MV lamps), and the quality of them, are measured only in megapixels, rather than other factors.
Smartphones cameras are basically equivalent to the cheap point & shot pocket digital cameras and the small all mechanical film cameras, which designed only to photograph people.
If you want good color accuracy, you should buy a normal camera.
I uses Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. It also slightly don't gets the colors well, but much better than all smartphones on the market.

if your camera has manual white balance try it.
some may have a few presets that are better than nothing.
as mentioned cellphone cameras often do not have any manual settings.

I agree with Dor 100% on this one .. smartphone camera CMOS sensors are nowhere near as capable as those in proper full-size DSLR cameras, the optics are usually fixed (and very small, needing more sensitivity and exacerbating the problem with the inherent noise floor in such devices), the software functionality is there to dress mutton to look like lamb so to speak but you can't improve on the source, only simulate visual enhancement.

Lost detail is lost, even with the best software.

To be honest I'm still not happy with the colour purity of sensors even in half-decent DSLR cameras, mine is a Canon EOS500D and although much better than what I've had before, it still requires some careful settings of exposure etc., to achieve decent colour saturation when photographing light sources.


BG

What else i noticed with moms canon, the pics in the preview (on the camera screen when holding the shot button halfway down) are way better in color accuracy than the final results O_o - especially in dark conditions

I don't usually use the preview screen (except for some of my spectrum shots as it's rather hard to see through/use the viewfinder properly). However it's done a pretty good job of showing the true colour of my Eye H40


BG

I got quite a good shot here, using a basic Kodak C633 on my 400watt MBF.

I would like to rephrase my question.  I would like to know what causes it to be green on camera (not white balancing).  Does it have something to do with the mercury wavelengths coming from the lamp or those not in the visible spectrum?

What else i noticed with moms canon, the pics in the preview (on the camera screen when holding the shot button halfway down) are way better in color accuracy than the final results O_o - especially in dark conditions

Seems to be a problem with the camera sensor or the auto white ballance. Also, if a lamp is flickers double the mains and the camera have a CCD sensor, and the exposure time is short, the camera can catch the lamp at different phases of the mains frequency, where the current is low, resulting in a different color than expected.
For example: In this picture the Philips 160W ML at full brightnes, has been captured in the phase of the 100hz mains frequency, where there is current in the arctube (And the green color here is indeed, because of poor AWB. In this picture the same lamp at full brightness, has been captured in the zero current phase of the 100hz mains frequency, hence only the yellow color of the filament can be seen. All of them, were captured by my old small Canon camera (Which I don't remember its model).
On this pictures you can see that several of the F96T12/D HO-O ALTOs looks yellow instead of daylight. This is because of the short exposure time + they are captured when they were in the phase of the zero/very low current of the 100hz mains frequency, and the halophosphors afterglows in a yellow color for a brief of microseconds, so thats why they looks yellow. The photo also photographed with my old small Canon camera.

This is also a problem with film; fluorescents and coated mercury lamps usually look green.

It's also difficult to get SOX to look decent on digital cameras, as it usually looks reddish instead of orange unless it's a strongly lit scene with the lamp itself out of shot.


BG

Thank you very much for the response Max!  That is good to know.  Thanks!