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FrozenGate by Avery

1 watt blue beam

S

Shay

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Nov 4, 2010
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I am brand new to the forums but have been hanging around LPF for a few months. I have owned a bunch of low class lasers over the years including a few biggies from 150mW-250mW. I'm not a burner and only use lasers for aircraft-free night time sky lasing and general pointing. I don't own a pair of glasses because I never thought they were needed for night time outdoor use. Am I wrong? My eyesight is perfect and never once had reflections hit my eyes.

I'm looking at getting one of yobresal 1 watt blue lasers and wondered if googles are required to even look at the beam while sky pointing. I live near some mountains where humans can't really get to so that would be a great place to use the blue laser against. Would watching the beam (not the projected dot) under this type of outdoor use eventually hurt my eyes?

Thank you

Shay
 





Looking at the beam won't hurt your eyes. Looking at the dot close up can be harmful, especially on reflective and light colored surfaces. You should be fine if you are only planning use it for pointing outdoors, the only thing you will have to worry about are reflective things like road signs.
 
The safest thing to do with any laser that powerful is to get goggles. If you reflect the beam off of something the results could be very devastating.

Goggles are around $50 +- a little. Your eyes are worth a little more than that I would hope.
 
I don't see the point of getting a high powered 445nm laser just for pointing in the sky when you have low powered lasers for that.

You should just get goggles anyway, just incase you are tempted to use indoors and burn something where the dot reflections will cause damage to your eyes overtime.
 
you're all missing the key point of safety goggles... they block the beam. so you can't use goggles for star gazing LoL

michael
 
chipdouglas said:
you're all missing the key point of safety goggles... they block the beam. so you can't use goggles for star gazing LoL

michael
Click to expand...

Exactly. If you're going to wear goggles for outside pointing you might as well get a weaker laser. Getting a powerful laser just to block out 99% of the light makes no sense.
 
Anyway .. shining 1W into the sky has different risks. It can be visible for 100 miles. It can be dangerous for air traffic for tens of miles. The beam itself will be visible for miles. Generally you don't want to shine 1W laser into the sky. Not even in the fog, as fog tends to be just few meters above the ground, and the beam can still be dangerous above it. With low clouds may be. But with todays media image of lasers shining at aircraft, you generally don't want anyone to know you have such laser, much less you shine it to the sky.
 
do you know how great the divergence would be at 100 miles? c'mon. planes can't even go 100 miles up LoL. always use common sense when shining a laser though. but youse more common sense when you speak.

michael.
 
DrSid said:
Anyway .. shining 1W into the sky has different risks. It can be visible for 100 miles.
Click to expand...

Even though those are some scary facts, I can't help but to giggle like a school kid at the shear power of these things.:drool:

But when I say "I'll be using it for sky pointing", in my case I really mean for below horizon pointing. I like reaching out long distances to touch objects like trees, walls of buildings and rocky uninhabited mountain ranges in my area.
 
chipdouglas said:
do you know how great the divergence would be at 100 miles? c'mon. planes can't even go 100 miles up LoL. always use common sense when shining a laser though. but youse more common sense when you speak.

michael.
Click to expand...

Not 100 miles up, but 100 miles far away near horizon. And I said 'visible'. It is computed somewhere in stickies ..
 
sorry drsid, there are too many variable to compute. each person focuses their laser different. have you actually measured the divergence of a 445 at over 50 feet, let alone a mile. Also you can see a planes flashing lights at 100 miles out. and the general concensus around here is that lasers are harmful to aircraft overhead, and helicopters.

don't get me wrong. i don't condone using lasers unsafely. but creating hypothetical situations as scare tactics is just as bad. lets put it another way, i would be more worried about ppl with 50mw greenies than ppl with 1watt 445s.

michael.
 
I never said it is dangerous at such distances, I said it is visible.
As for 50mw greenes .. they are same easy to get as 1W these days, only cheaper.
 
it's not a monetary issue or ease of possesion issue. its greenis have such a tight divergence they are more of a threat.
 
Some do, that's right .. they are also more visible (ie. more dazzling) and they less scatter in the air.
 
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