Can a friend see my laser in a clear night sky from 2 miles away?

I ordered a optotronics 40+mw green laser pointer and I'm just wondering, can my friend who lives about two miles away see my laser pointer in sky if I shoot it directly up into a clear night sky?
How far away can person be away for them to be able to see it?

Thanks

Nope. Gotta be pretty close.

I have been wondering the same thing, what if it were a 1W 445 or a green 200-250mw?

250mW green maybe , but not with clear sky

Laser pointers are little objects to be seen from 2 miles, but heavy enough to be throwed at some height. I don't think your friend could see a flying pointer throwed by you to the sky. But for sure he could hear your @!#&@!$% when it hits the soil.

Hey no offence just kiddin' ;-)

Now seriously, I have tried this a couple times, and the more perpendicular the beam is to your friend point of view, less visible will it be. Perpendicular to floor none of my friends saw nothing but I was sawing a pretty beam. Things change when there are low clouds, lets say 1 or two miles high, this time my friends could see a greenish glow in the clouds. I don't saw it because i didn't want to put that laser in the hands of that friends (to protect them of accidents, it was a 200mw green). Anyway I trust what they said.

The answer is no unless there is fog. Even then I don't know if he will be able to. Now I have tried this with my ir filtered 130mw green from a few blocks and my friend could not see it. My friend could however see my 445 but only barely. So I hope that clears things up for ya

Actually, minor correction here to two above posts. With clear sky, laser pointers can be seen that far, if aimed accurately. With any for or amount of crap in the air, not a change.

Here I live in this dorm through the workdays, and I have a buddy of mine living aproximately 300 meters of airline distance from me.

We have been pointing 1W blues (well, 800-900mW likely, but you get the idea) to eachother. There is a building in the way, but aiming right above it gives you the feeling you're pointing the beam few meters above my friend's window. Same goes from him - he says he's pointing the beam really really low. However, to me it looks like the beam is passing around 20-30 meters above me. I am not sure of actual distance to the beam at 90° Angle.

He also says I'm pointing the laser too high, but I'm going as low as the building in the middle permits.

Visibility of the incoming laser was, surprisingly, very low. Possibly due to high divergence, but it looked like equal brightness 50mW greenie he was pointing towards me.


Then one night there was this fog as dense as milk outside. I was like "Woo point the blue one over here". Much to my dismay, I saw apsolutely nothing through the fog.
I had my Arctic at the time and across the street there was a building aproximately 25 meters away.

The beam of light barely reached the building, I could only barely make out the dot. All the light gets lost in the fog along the way.

So no, if there's any fog at 2 miles, it will be really difficult for anybody to see the beam since they cannot see buildings they normally would see without fog.

Without anything, and with recent rainfall so there's clear air, you could perhaps aim the beam towards a friend 2 miles away. It would be best he had a high visibility laser too, so you can "locate" eachother.

We're talking 300mW+ greens or at least 1W blues here. Best to have high power green because of smaller divergence of the beam.

My friends can see my green labby from about 2.5-3 miles away if I aim it in their direction but not if I point it straight up.
It should be noted though that my this particular laser hits over 600mw on my LPM.

Interesting. Yes, if there is heavy fog the only good beam view is for the one pointing the beam into it and any nearby viewers. With heavy fog it is the safest way to view the beam in the sky. The beam will be attenuated before it could reach aircraft and virtually no one else is going to even see the beam.