So just how visible are lasers from a distance?

[jander6442]

This is a good topic...Great pics I would try some more...

I have since I live next to the ocean done beam shots over the water amazing...
In less than 10 min a boat came rushing at me... at this point I was stoping all activity to see what was commin at me...

Guess who? the Coast Guard thats who had me runnin off that dock...

I just noticed the Laserglow logo on the pic what's with that?

 

[nikokapo]

Switch pretty much summed it all up correctly

 

[laze_doctor]

Well the main thing I'm wondering about is the first image I posted. Supposedly a 100mW from 6 miles away.

 

[Benm]

I seriously the doubt the first picture is what it looks like to the eye, when using about 100 mW from a 8 km distance. The viewing angle really is a big factor, which you can easily test yourself: run a laser across your yard, and look at the beam from the side from a few meters away. As long as the air is quite clean, you'll hardly be able to see it at all at <100 mW levels. Since you know it's there you're likely to notice the faint beam at some point, but if you were unaware of what to look for, i seriously doubt you'd notice its there.

 

[laze_doctor]

My thoughts exactly. Perhaps the first pic has been edited :S

 

[karbon]

here is a video from dragonlasers, pretty impressive
they use a viper 125mw

 

[charliebruce]

With my DX "100mW" portable (probably around 60mW max) in the South of Wales, the beam was very visible for me and the people within 10m of me, but I found that, as I walked further away, the beam got steadily less bright, until I was about 15-20m away, when the beam was very hard to notice unless looking for it. In the pic of the laser over the city, that effect can be seen - when it is most perpendicular, nearest the camera, it can be seen less than the beam further away. I don't have any maths to back this up, but I'm sure somebody has a nice theorem for this...

 

[Murudai]

It would be interesting to do proper tests on the brightness of the laser based on the angle and distance from the beam. Hmm.

 

[Switch]

But how would you go about doing such tests? Maybe with a good camera with fixed settings, at night in a spot with no ambient lighting.

 

[Murudai]

BTW Murudai I was talking to a buddy about lasers, and he mentioned that a couple months ago he looked out of his window (he lives in your building) and saw what I can only assume was your RPL

Just a few nights ago there was lots of fog around, so I shined my RPL out the window and a friend of mine saw the beam (he's decently far away from me). And I bet at least another 30 people saw it too, lol!

'tis quite a laser that 'un.