An electrical engineer, amateur astronomer, and diver, living and working on the island of Hawaiʻi.
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2 thoughts on “Laser Gallery”
That sodium laser is such a bright light, even with filtration wouldn’t enough light (perhaps from florescence of air molecules?) cause bleeding and degradation of images?
The laser is very monochromatic, 589nm. When using AO the instrument is near IR, using light above 700nm, thus the instrument sees nothing of the laser light.
We do need to avoid a laser beam in another telescope’s field of view. Each of the observatories participates in a computer network exchange of where everyone is looking at any given moment and to calculate where the beams are. This avoids blasting laser light into someone else’s science exposures.
That sodium laser is such a bright light, even with filtration wouldn’t enough light (perhaps from florescence of air molecules?) cause bleeding and degradation of images?
The laser is very monochromatic, 589nm. When using AO the instrument is near IR, using light above 700nm, thus the instrument sees nothing of the laser light.
We do need to avoid a laser beam in another telescope’s field of view. Each of the observatories participates in a computer network exchange of where everyone is looking at any given moment and to calculate where the beams are. This avoids blasting laser light into someone else’s science exposures.