I saw some nighttime footage from Egypt that showed numerous green beams being pointed at helicopter gunships.
I have had duck to avoid laser pointers at SPOC, they can be a nuisance. I imagine the New Jersey law was advocated by pilots, the air space is pretty crowded there as well. I cry no tears over laser restrictions. It's just a gun with a HYOOGE riflescope and mounted on a tripod.
It's sad that while responsible astronomers aren't the target of this kind of legislation, we will suffer the collateral damage.
A 1mW green laser is useless as an astro pointer. IMO, 5mW units are marginal at best, especially under suburban skies and not suited to large groups. 10mW is about the low-end power cutoff point, from my experience, in order for a pointer to have some value as an astronomy pointer.
The Grim scope at SPOC uses a 10mW rated laser "finder", if anyone wants to have a look at it's beam for comparison purposes, next time you're at a star party out there. It works very well when viewed close to it's axis, but becomes increasingly marginally visible the further off-axis the viewer is.
20mW+ laser beams are highly visible even for viewers very far off-axis. This would be my preferred lower-end threshold laser for large observing fields or nights with excellent transparency and very little suspended matter in the air. Dust, pollen, and water vapor enhance beam visibility greatly. The cleaner the air, the more power you need for the beam to be seen.
On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 7:44 PM, Bruce Hugo <bruce.hugo@yahoo.com> wrote:
Ok, trying to post for the first time:
Hmmm... what if they dual mount the laser/gun on their telescope?
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