Are powerful lasers illegal?

[450nm]

I set up a 200 mW red beam at 15 feet above ground and shone it down the street where I live (UK) for a couple of hours the other night. There was a very light mist and the beam was fantastic. Most people were loving it but some prat came over and started on about it being 'dangerous to drivers'. I pointed out that I have never seen a driver sitting 15 feet above ground. Prat said he'd call the police so I just said that if he was saying that it was a matter of road safety that I would complain about his car which was always parked across the pavement blocking 2/3 of it! I promptly took a picture of his car which shut him up.

 

[Benm]

I guess such things are legal if done responsibly. If you shine the beam 15 foot high and into somewhere where it can't hit a person or aircraft (say into some trees or something), i doubt there is any law preventing from you doing so.

That said, you should always be a bit careful shining things into the sky. The chances you'd do actual eye damage to a pilot are neglible for craft flying 1000s of feets hight, but the light can be quite distracting.

I live in a tall building, and aimed a DX30 at a friends window who lives about 1 km away. From that view, the laser is easily the brightest thing to been seen at night, even in a city that has plenty of lighting otherwise. For a pilot looking for a runway, i can see the problem with that

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

toked - that is why i dont sell or let unenlightened people handle my lasers because they will do something stupid so like you should have known that that person is an idiot and even if you need the $ dont sell it to him because like he could cause all of us to loose our hobby and worse cause harm to someone which if i would feel guilty about