Laser Pointer Experiment

Laser Pointer Danger?

So just how dangerous is a Laser Pointer? We've all heard the stories about people going blind after shining them in their eyes, or pilots being temporarily blinded by them when they hit an aircraft.

I used to believe that most of these rumors, other then the danger to close-up exposure directly into the eye, were a lot of bull and bunk. I mean, how can something running on a pair of AAA batteries and emitting less energy overall then a votive candle blind someone 4 miles up in the air?

So the other night, around dusk, my friend Eric and I drove out to Lake Monroe outside of Orlando, FL. He and I were on a boat launch on the northern side, and my friends Kevin and Carl were on the southern shore, 17,184 feet, or about 3.26 miles, away.

We set the lasers up on tripods, so that they would be stable enough to photograph and went about aiming them, using my headlights as a reference point.

It was a relatively clear night, with just enough moisture in the air to allow the beam to refract to the point it could be seen.

These were the results: