Laser into the night sky, How far am I seeing it?

[Shady At Best]

Bubonic, That is exactly what I was looking for. I knew the light was going much further than I could see it. That answers why they both seem to stop about the same spot. I live in a pretty flat area and my buddy could see me shining the laser straight up from about 4 miles away.

 

[Multimode]

There was exactly the same discussion a while ago -

The conclusion was it's more related to the "vanishing point" effect rather than layers in the atmosphere.

Cypro explained it very well.

ATB
MM