How i see what aircraft are in the immediate area for star pointing.

[Alaskan]

If the laser is set to "infinity" focus, miles away the beam can diverge to be 50 to 100 feet wide with most of our pointers without expanders on them (when using a typical 6mm diameter collimation lens). Put a 10X beam expander on your pointer and the beam will be 1/10 as wide at these distances for the same mRad of divergence:

Edit: Back to add this:







Doubling the distance of any of these three results will produce a beam diameter which is twice as wide. Double the divergence instead of the distance and you get a beam twice as wide too.