Lazer finders?... good , bad?

[Rob]

Got my eye on one that I could get cheap!.. are these any good?. Its a green Lazer pen in a bracket effectivley, I do find it had sometimes to nail DSO's with just the finder scope.. I like RDF's but find they give you neck strain on a refractor!!

Cheers

Rob

[Black Shuck]

Been considering getting one myself. The green ones are better but more expensive than red as I believe they are more difficult to make. Your eye is at its most sensitive at the frequency of green light, so for two equivalent powered lasers the green one will appear far brighter than the red one.

You might need to do some research as to the suitable power required?? The cheaper ones are 5mW but I have seen ones far more powerful (250mW) advertised as astronomy pointers. Some of these "claim" to be powerful enough to burst balloons and light matches so imagine what a stray beam could do to your eye!!

This following site looks like a responsible company. I reckon you could mount some of these in a bracket? Has a link to Health Protection Agency for safety guidance. They also claim to call you in order for you to justify the need for a higher power laser before they will sell to you!!

http://www.scitec.uk.com/lasers/laser_pointer_orderingver2.php

Hope this helps

Bill£

P.S I notice some ebay/amazon sellers advertise powers in MW (MEGAWATTS), this should be mW (milliWatts). I reckon MegaWatt lasers would be Star Wars Death Star jobs!!

[GordonCopestake]

Be aware than anything over class II is illegal in this country. However suppliers happily flaunt the law and sell Class IIIa and even Class IIIb lasers. Stick with the 5mw to be safe. Anything more can seriously damage your eyes and as mentioned anything over 1mw is actually illegal in the UK/Europe

[Merlin]

Does anyone have a problem with their laser's performance in damp and cold conditions? I find that there are times when mine doesn't perform at all well.

If I put my finger-tip over the end to warm the laser a little,the beam perks up,but only for a few seconds. Any suggestions from other laser-pointer users with the same problem? How about a shot of Viagra?

[omaroo]

Does anyone have a problem with their laser's performance in damp and cold conditions? I find that there are times when mine doesn't perform at all well.

If I put my finger-tip over the end to warm the laser a little,the beam perks up,but only for a few seconds. Any suggestions from other laser-pointer users with the same problem? How about a shot of Viagra?

It gets down to -15 deg C at our place in winter (cold for Australia!!) and I find that if I keep my laser pointer in my top pocket inside my jacket that it works fine when I whip it out to point to something while it's still relatively warm. If it's mounted to an OTA and out in the open, then I guess you'll have problems....