Astronomy Laser

[iapa]

14 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

Thaniks for all the comments people.

A little more digging as brought up this Emax green laser pointer | Emax Laser Pointers

One of these could be used to mount it 35mm Stand Mount for Green Laser Pointer, a Helper of Astro Telescope Black | eBay

However I have seen them fired directly into a 10x50 finder to shine a beam into the sky. It is this option I am considering for my travel outfit

Output power is not shown, assume it will be over the limit for a class 2 laser in the UK

Green lasers actually emit infrared and pass through a crystal to shift frequency to green. If that’s not properly set up, you still also get IR emitted, invisible, but eye damaging.

My only use for lasers is in collimation.

[Louis D]

3 hours ago, iapa said:

My only use for lasers is in collimation.

Still dangerous if the mirrors are sending the return beam back out the front and you look down the tube to see what's going on only to look straight into the return beam.  I always wave my hand over the front of a Newt's tube to locate the outbound beam before looking down it.

3 hours ago, iapa said:

Green lasers actually emit infrared and pass through a crystal to shift frequency to green. If that’s not properly set up, you still also get IR emitted, invisible, but eye damaging.

Even the visible light can be eye damaging.  Just make a habit of never looking down the front of a laser pointer even if it appears to be off, never using it around others, never bringing them to star parties, never leaving them lying around the house with batteries loaded, etc.  I tend to be ultraconservative with them and have not had any issues.

[iapa]

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

Still dangerous if the mirrors are sending the return beam back out the front and you look down the tube to see what's going on only to look straight into the return beam.  I always wave my hand over the front of a Newt's tube to locate the outbound beam before looking down it.

 

I point the OTA at a wall to check that the laser is not missing the secondary.

[AlexK]

That's why you should not mount your GLP permanently as with that six-screws "torturing device". So any moment you can remove it and keep cozy in the inner pocket.