Hi everyone,
I'm unclear on the safety level of a Blu-Ray laser and I was hoping someone could help me clarify because I had some recent exposure to it by accident and I'm kind of worried. Here's what happened: last night we had a power outage, and one of the people I was hanging out with pulled out a laser pointer he made from a Blu-Ray dvd player. No one had eye protection, and he was just waving it around in the dark. It was way too bright and I ended up closing my eyes mostly, but it still gave me a slight headache. I couldn't look at it for too long anyway, but I did see it from the side or pointed at surfaces.
Would looking at the beam from the side or watching it in the air/on the wall damage my eyes? It was never pointed directly in my eyes, and I don't know how dangerous it is otherwise.
So far, the specs I've been able to find are that it's a 405-407nm wavelength, at 1-7mW power (please correct me if i'm wrong!!). So it falls in the class IIIb range, and while 1mW power is usually okay (sun level), 2-5 is significantly more dangerous, and I don't know how powerful that laser was.
Would looking at it like I did damage my retina? How would I know? Are the effects instantaneous or could I have slow degeneration in vision?
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
I'm unclear on the safety level of a Blu-Ray laser and I was hoping someone could help me clarify because I had some recent exposure to it by accident and I'm kind of worried. Here's what happened: last night we had a power outage, and one of the people I was hanging out with pulled out a laser pointer he made from a Blu-Ray dvd player. No one had eye protection, and he was just waving it around in the dark. It was way too bright and I ended up closing my eyes mostly, but it still gave me a slight headache. I couldn't look at it for too long anyway, but I did see it from the side or pointed at surfaces.
Would looking at the beam from the side or watching it in the air/on the wall damage my eyes? It was never pointed directly in my eyes, and I don't know how dangerous it is otherwise.
So far, the specs I've been able to find are that it's a 405-407nm wavelength, at 1-7mW power (please correct me if i'm wrong!!). So it falls in the class IIIb range, and while 1mW power is usually okay (sun level), 2-5 is significantly more dangerous, and I don't know how powerful that laser was.
Would looking at it like I did damage my retina? How would I know? Are the effects instantaneous or could I have slow degeneration in vision?
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
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