While it is certainly possible for a laser to cause damage to the retina the
green laser pointers that some of use can't do it.
They just aren't bright enough. Take a look at:
http://www.drgreene.com/21_607.html
The idea that could do anything to a pilot of an airplane 10's of thousands
of feet up is really silly. Take a look at how much the beam spreads, even
across a room. Assume that the beam has a remarkable 1 mradian divergence.
This means that it spreads by a factor of 1/1000 as it travels. So, after
1000' the beam spot is 1' wide. At 10,000' it is 10' wide. Assuming a 7mm
entrance pupil for a dark adapted pilot we find that about 1/100,000 of the
laser light enters the pilot's eye at 10,000'
Getting hit in a dark adapted eye with a laser pointer will dazzle your
vision and might cause some temporary eye pain and it will certainly be
distracting. Not fun, even worse than a car driving in with its brights on.
Dark adaption is shot. Dangerous it isn't.
-Leonard
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean McCauliff" <sean.mccauliff@No-Spam>
To: "The Astronomy Connection" <sf-bay-tac@No-Spam>
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 10:06 AM
Subject: p: [TAC] Green Laser Safety
> Several pilots have been hurt over the years. They don't say what
> color the laser is in the article.
>
> http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040928-111356-3924r.htm
>
> -Sean
>
Received on Wed Sep 29 11:33:53 2004