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Rain, rain, and more rain !

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SenKat

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Okay - I saw a post somewhere that told of shining a greenie in a snowstorm....I did the same thing with rain tonight....friggin cool as hell....DAMN nice looking - and I didn't even bust out the WL Nexus ! Just one of the 50mw ones....incredible....you gotta try it ! The beam refracts off of every rain drop - I shot my time tunnel prototype outside, and it looked awesome too ! I think I am gonna try to build a galvo system to run some basic programming, and do some crude designs soon. I say crude, because an artist, I am not !
 





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does it reflect off the raindrops? cuz that would be way cool... it would light up the sky... ::)
 

Sniper

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Me and my friend have a park by his house and there is a waterfountain that we went to for cool effects and we found out a lot! not so much the green water but the pictures it was making on the wall but we didnt take any pics :'(
 
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timelord

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SenKat said:
Okay - I saw a post somewhere that told of shining a greenie in a snowstorm....I did the same thing with rain tonight....friggin cool as hell....DAMN nice looking - and I didn't even bust out the WL Nexus !  Just one of the 50mw ones....incredible....you gotta try it !  The beam refracts off of every rain drop - I shot my time tunnel prototype outside, and it looked awesome too !  I think I am gonna try to build a galvo system to run some basic programming, and do some crude designs soon.  I say crude, because an artist, I am not !

You wanna try your tunnel maker out in the fog now that is truelly mind blowing :D :cool:
 

Kenom

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Ya know, living in montana I've had the opportunity to shoot a green laser into both rain and snow. Since rain is just water and water has a tendency to defract light it does not show up nearly as well as shooting a laser into a snowstorm. One night about 2 years ago, after purchasing my first 15mw laser we got a nice snow storm. Now it was the middle of the night so I did not have an opportunity to shine my laser during the snowstorm. I did however get a chance to shine my laser into the snow that had accumulated in my yard. About 2 feet of it. The laser seemed to illuminate about 10 feet of snow in diameter. It was AMAZING. I was hooked. I was going to shine the green beam in a snowstorm. Since snow is white and is frozen water. it doesn't defract light and actually reflects light. I stayed up all night that night waiting for snow and the next and the next. finally on day 4 it SNOWED AT NIGHT. I'm not talkin about the small flakes. I'm talking BIG HUGE FLUFFY snow. Out whipped my laser. With glee I pushed the button to activate my newest toy and send out 15mw of green illuminating power. BOOM! NOTHING. Crud! I needed to change batteries I had played with it so much shining it into the snow that I had burned through the batteries. Rushing into the house I grabbed the other set of batteries I had purchased when I bought the laser. Slammin the batteries into the laser and screwing the tailcap on I ran outside to fire it up and see this wonder that I knew was waiting me. Again, I pushed the button. BOOM!. Again nothing. WTF?? I ran inside again and tested the battery voltage then realized when I pulled the batteries out that I had them in backwards. DUH! rushing back outside after placing the batteries in correctly and test firing the laser inside to make sure it worked I eaglerly lifted my arm to fire the laser outside into the stream of falling flakes the size of quarters. HOoooo. it was like MAGIC. The beam was visible a little shooting out into the distance. But every time a snowflake fell across the beam it would flash a brilliant green and dissapear. All along the beam it was flashing here, there. here again there again. It was breathtaking. I thought to myself. What if I wave the beam around the sky? I did so and it illuminated snowflakes all over the sky as the beam passed over flake after flake after flake. It wasn't quite as exhillarating as just having the flakes fall into the beam when I held it still but it was still amazing to watch. Setting the rubber band I put on the laser to hold the button down I ran out into the snow to get a different perspective on this beam of color that was flashing so brilliantly all along the beam. BOOORING. I ran back to the laser and watched for hours as the snow hit the beam over and over again, time and again until the batteries died and I went inside to dream of flashes of green. Now that I own several green lasers I've had the joy of watching this over and over again. but nothing ever compared to the time I first experienced this.

Next time SenKat. I will film it so you can share in the joy that is laser snow! It's 100x better than laser rain.
 

Daedal

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Us boring floridians are not blessed with the gift of snow... :'(

Maybe I can share the joy of laser snow! :)

--DDL
 
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timelord

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I've been sunbathing today in the UK 24 C today and more to come ;D ;D ;D ;D
 

Kenom

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It will be 6 months or more before we get any snow but you have my personal guarantee that as soon as I get a good fluffy snow storm you all will be witness to the beauty that is laser snow. I will have to rent a good quality camcorder as the only thing I have are security camera's and webcams. Although with security camera's I can put it in IR mode and run a IR laser through the snow and it would look good.
 
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Its been a long while since I've tried it but I've had similarly cool experiences with my 22.5mW Atlasnova in the rain.

Lately I've had to be extra careful here in Hawaii due to morons shining lasers at Cost Guard aircraft.

One of these days I want to try my DX 50mW on one of the lookout points along the Pali Hwy going up into the mountains. They have a tendency to be shrouded in fog and clouds. Twould be pretty spiffy looking I bet
 
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il have to try this when i get mine. just one question, how much rain can it take before something happens to it?
 
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SenKat

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It can handle NO RAIN !!!! You have to put it in a plastic zipper type bag, and make it completely waterprrof otherwise your laser will DIE ! OMG !!! EEEEK ! ;D

Seriously - treat it like it is made of sugar - if it gets wet, it will melt ! If any water gets inside it, it will most likely be history. I stand under the cover of my garage to take lots of outside photos, so there is no chance of a sudden downpour ruining my babies !
 
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Also being in Florida, I have to settle for laser rain.  We get such heavy downpours here that even my <5mW greenie and my Atlasnova 635nm red put on a fine show.

I do it all from the safety of my screened in porch and shine the lasers horizontally onto a neighbor's roof.
 
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SenKat said:
I stand under the cover of my garage to take lots of outside photos, so there is no chance of a sudden downpour ruining my babies !

Heh. Either that or move to a state where the weather actually makes some sense!  :D What is with the random rain over here anyway? April showers bring may showers?! And then next thing you know the sun is blazing for the next few hours... oh wait, and then comes the thunder!
 
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SenKat

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Yeah - it's gotta be my fault, too - ever since I moved to Texas - everyone says, "This weather is highly unusual" LOL !!!
 

Things

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is it true that when you shine a laser up at the sky during a thunderstorm the lightning will follow down the beam and electrocute you :-?
 
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things said:
is it true that when you shine a laser up at the sky during a thunderstorm the lightning will follow down the beam and electrocute you :-?

There are femtosecond laser pulses that can ionize the air, basically making a fake wire in the sky that lightning can follow. We're talking serious power here though.

Any portable laser is probably going to be at least a billion times less powerful than what you'd need to put you in serious risk.

So basically: NO - at least not with anything you will get your hands on (though it doesn't have its basis in truth)
 




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