green laser

[skywatcher250]

Hahaha I'm not calling anyone's girlfriend mate. Been in far to much trouble from that before hahahaha

[LeeB]

A green laser attached to a goto scope is really useful in groups of telescopes. once the goto is aligned, turn it on for a couple of minutes and let all the other scopes align on the object. Its great for all those dobs to find hard objects.

[DaveS]

*shudder* I live under the Heathrow flightpath. There's rarely fewer than three planes in my patch of sky, and there can easily be five or six, even at 11.30 at night.

Although I have a green laser (From the guys I linked to) I only use it for physics under close control. There's no way I'd go waving it around the sky at night.

[LeeB]

we get about 1 plane an hour when its late and I am always very careful.

[laser_jock99]

So don't be fooled by laser power ratings. We have a 1.5 W pulsed laser at work and I treat it with the respect accorded to a grumpy elephant.

We sold another 10 Joule system at work today (peak power well into the Giga Watt/cm2 range......)

[Hobbes]

I have a couple of green lazers of differing powers and have found that the green laser diodes really suffer in the cold. A lower powered laser is fine as long as you keep it warm. Mount it on a scope in chilly weather and after a few minutes the power output drops dramatically but keep it in your trouser pocket and only bring it out when you need it and it will work fine. I have made a little cradle for mine and mounted that on the scope and then just lay the lazer on that when I need to use it as a finder. I have read that some people have used a piece of packing polystyrene trimmed and drilled to make an insulating case for the diode end of the laser.

[knobby]

We sold another 10 Joule system at work today (peak power well into the Giga Watt/cm2 range......)

Is that to point at stars or start super Nova's

[laser_jock99]

Is that to point at stars or start super Nova's

Plasma research I think: http://www.clf.stfc.ac.uk/Facilities/Plasma+Physics/13759.aspx

[MarkMayf]

I bought a 5mw green alser from Amazon a few months ago for about £7.

It's brillinat for pointing things out. Obviously not when things are flying around.

[fredrikb]

Extremely useful info :-) Cheers!