You can't see laser beams in space.

[The Lightning Stalker]

Hmmnnn.... A camera will pick up 980nm light, you can try this yourself:-
Hold the led window of a standard tv remote to the lens of your phone camera and press a button and you will see it light up.
With this I question the fact a camera wouldn't pick up a high powered laser at 1500nm and would think a direct hit to a camera would cause total "white out".... IMHO.. but I may be proved wrong

It won't. 1500nm is totally black on a
camera. Think about it. There is a 520nm
difference between 980nm and 1500nm. That
is like going from hard UV to IR again.
Most of it will not even reach the back of
the eye.

If you can't be sure it was actually there then you can't be sure you even saw it can you?

No, I can't. It could have been a
hallucination, but it definitely was not a
meateor.

 

[Teej]

No, I can't. It could have been a
hallucination, but it definitely was not a
meateor.

A meateor could be pretty nice though.

It sounds like would cook itself on its way through the atmosphere, and be hot and ready to eat by the time it reached us, hopefully landing on the dinner table next to the potateors? :drool:

 

[WriggleyTinn]

Before making my post about it being seen on a camera I searched google and the military have cameras just for the job of spotting 1500nm lasers... Though I didn't manage to find any such info on NASA.... but I'd put money on them having some serious camera equipment too... So my mind still remains open on this issue ....

 

[The Lightning Stalker]

A meateor could be pretty nice though.

It sounds like would cook itself on its way through the atmosphere, and be hot and ready to eat by the time it reached us, hopefully landing on the dinner table next to the potateors? :drool:

You're making me SO hungry! :drool:

Before making my post about it being seen on a camera I searched google and the military have cameras just for the job of spotting 1500nm lasers... Though I didn't manage to find any such info on NASA.... but I'd put money on them having some serious camera equipment too... So my mind still remains open on this issue ....

A few companies make do make very expensive
MWIR cameras.

 

[Alaskan]

Difficult to get the spot right on someone at that distance, our lasers are always more impressive when close to the beams, unless you can get spot on with the pointing.

I made a video about 5 years ago of myself shining a 75mW green laser at my brother who was just over 5 miles away.

 

[starlight]

Difficult to get the spot right on someone at that distance, our lasers are always more impressive when close to the beams, unless you can get spot on with the pointing.

I only had one laser at the time and if both of us had a laser we could have got better aim possibly. Moving the laser just and inch either way equates to many feet at 5 miles!! This was my own curiosity if I could see the laser from 5 miles and went to find out. We were using Nextel 2 way phones and just told each other when to lase and the other reported back they see it.
The location's I did this are both close so I might do it again with higher power and better aim but have concern because location is in a downtown area, that is a Ford dealership in front of the water tower

 

[Pi R Squared]

I remember an old thread where someone posted a video of a green laser from 8 or 9 km away and I think they were in Israel. I can't find it but I searched YouTube and this looks like the same video I remember and it's supposedly only 200 mW, so they can be seen very far away.