Abstract: A xenon arc searchlight or illumination system incorporates a high frequency/high efficiency electronic circuit that allows lamp ballasting and charging of the system battery to occur over a wide range of external DC power supplies. The tolerance to variations in the system battery voltage as well as external battery voltage are increased by providing logic control of the converter circuit through a programmed logic device. The intensity of the arc lamp is smoothly decreased or increased in a continuous manner from a maximum intensity to a minimum intensity beam. Ignition of the lamp at its minimum illumination levels is thereby permitted. The xenon arc lamp is uniquely oriented within the searchlight with respect to the reflector to provide the most concentrated and convergent field of illumination on which the lamp is capable, namely with the anode of the lamp turned away from the forward beam direction in the reflector.