Aquarium Spiro

randomlugia said:

[quote author=wicked1 link=1222976018/20#37 date=1223758342][quote author=GooeyGus link=1222976018/20#23 date=1223174919]Coherent light CAN be split with a prism like regular light, BUT it is weird that since the blu-ray diodes are monochromatic you are getting other colors. I guess it could come from an adhesive material glowing under the BR light. That is rather interesting though!

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Your aquarium water is fluorescing a white/blue color, and that is what is breaking up into the rainbow.  
I've got a 150mw b.r., and you can sort of see the beam, but when it goes through the aquarium water, the beam is intensely bright, light blue.
I've got a big 240 gallon aquarium, and probably shine lasers into my fishes world far more often than I should!

Edit- i just read the original aquarium/rainbow post a little more slowly, and noticed he said he figured out it was something fluorescing.  I still say it's the water, tho.  I can get that effect w/out getting too close to the silicone edge.  

While I'm sort of off topic...  another cool thing w/ the aquarium is to get your brightest laser, (~350mw red in my case) and have it unfocused to a big foot round circle of light.  Aim a pump at the water to make it somewhat ripply.  Shine the laser at an angle up through the front glass and reflect the laser off the surface of the water, back onto the wall behind the aquarium. (sheesh.. this is harder to explain than it really is..  maybe I'll get a photo of the effect and post it in the appropriate area)  
well, anyway... it makes really cool wave patterns o the wall behind the aquarium.[/quote]

If you have a bubbler or some kind of aerator, you can shine your laser up at the suface of the water and out the other side of the aquarium. You get a spirograph, and the beam looks really cool. Depending on how powerfull your bubbler is, you get a wilder vibration. I'll post a picture in a few minutes...[/quote]^I said that.^

Here's the picture. ;D