Enjoy the HeNe. It's something that I think every serious laser enthusiast should have in their collection. I really need (ok want!) to get a bigger red tube like that since my only bare red tube has about an inch of plasma showing.
One piece of advice I give to all new bare tube HeNe owners:
Just be careful after you turn the laser off. The tube can hold a pretty decent charge that can zap you. While the shock, which feels like a nasty static electricity shock, is harmless in 99.99999% of people it will hurt like hell and could cause you to drop your tube which would suck. There are ways to discharge it quickly such as shorting out the leads coming from the tube if they're not permanently connected to the PSU or you could always wear gloves to insulate yourself from it. I have a cheap pair of winter gloves I paid like $2 from the hardware store a couple years ago that work fine for when I need to move a tube that's been recently run. Any cheap work gloves (preferably leather) should work fine as long as they don't have a real loose weave that could allow an easy path to ground for the tube. Of course the easiest way is to just let the tube self discharge on its own. How long it takes varies by tube but I'd guess an hour or two would probably be safe. O
I'm not trying to scare you but it's something that all bare tube HeNe owners need to be aware of so they don't find out the hard way!
