The belief ball pythons do not see colour has been proven not to be true. They have limited colour vision, dichromatic vision (two colour). Ball/royal pythons have been shown to have very limited UV/blue visual spectrum vision. There is also very highly refined red/infrared sensitivity. The cones also run into the yellow spectrum. This means yellow/orange/red/IR near and middle can be seen easily. As humans we see from near UV through the spectrum to the near IR (deep red) end. Pythons fail to see the lower end of UV and blues but much deeper into the IR range than humans can. This we know from electro microscopy and dissection. The heat pits are basically connected to the optical nerve of the brain so they are also vision. What this looks like is unknown if they are able to separate information from the eyes and heat pits or if it is linked is still a mystery.
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/202/14/1931.full.pdf
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