I know you got poo-poohed last year when you brought it up, but I still think it would be fun to do. Sort of like Myth Busters without the explosions.

I still have the test-stand, if anyone is interested in performing the beam visibility test against other brands, let me know. Maybe we can actually do it at a SLAS meeting in 2007- providing there is flexibility in scheduling. As I recall, all the 2006 meetings were booked before the year had even started.

Michael Carnes MichaelCarnes@earthlink.net home.earthlink.net/~michaelcarnes

Quoting Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com>:

I think my wife would kill me if I bought...

We should have a talk sometime. ;)

Remember that it was designed to yield useable information and isn't simply a "mine's brighter than yours" thing. It requires a darkened room, with participants ranking beams for visibility without being able to see the pointers themselves. The more participants, the more meaningful the data since it involves subjective evaluation only, no quantified measurement- although at one time Ivo had volunteered a light-meter, IIRC. It would be interesting to compare visual impressions with actual measured brightness. This test may yield data on human vision as well as individual laser brightness. We couldn't do this in a Village Inn without someone calling the police, in all probability! The worry at SPOC is people drifting in-and-out of the test area- hard to keep wee folks away from horizontal beams. If pointed skyward, it may be difficult to make sure no aircraft accidentally cross the beams- and six parallel green laser beams would certainly catch any pilots attention, for tens of miles! The dots themselves must not be visible to the participants, they are evaluating the beam only. I suppose we could aim them at the mountainside and only worry about helicopters. And the participants themselves may drift away as well- too many other neat distractions at SPOC! But we can try anything. Either folks are interested enough to do it, or they're not. I'll do it if asked and we get enough participants- both laser volunteers and evaluators (you can be both, if desired). --- Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote:

On 13 Dec 2006, at 07:45, Chuck Hards wrote:

...

I still have the test-stand, if anyone is interested in performing the beam visibility test against other brands, let me know. Maybe we can actually do it at a SLAS meeting in 2007- providing there is flexibility in scheduling.

Even if not as an official part of a meeting there's always at Advanced Training afterwards.

Maybe better still would be at SPOC during a star party.

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Of course, but the brightest beam will be the brightest beam, in any environment. Brightest in the garage will almost certainly be the brightest in the sky, all other things being equal. If you think the test is more meaningful (or fun, maybe?) outdoors, by all means, lets do it outdoors, but recognize that the data could suffer: The Evaluator's viewing angle changing as folks mill about, viewing distances shifting, ambient light level changing, suspended material & humidity in the air, etc., and all of them randomly. The looser environment and consequent reduced control compromises the data. --- Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote:

Hi Chuck (and lurkers),

Maybe I'm looking at this differently but my sole interest in any laser is how well it can be seen in the sky.

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