Laser Pointer Aimed at ISS

With the number laser pointers out there I started to wonder.
If you can get past the aiming problem, could the crew on the ISS see a consumer 5mw laser from orbit?

a reply to: samkent

Hmm I doubt it. I would imagine the atmosphere would bend the light coming from the laser. It would have to be a pretty strong device? I don't really know, but just applying logic I would imagine it was slightly impossible with a common hand held laser device.

Plus, its moving at umpteen miles an hour??

You might have to "target" your question to someone like Phage who it seems knows absolutely everything (Yes, constantly amazed by his/her replies).

originally posted by: samkent
With the number laser pointers out there I started to wonder.
If you can get past the aiming problem, could the crew on the ISS see a consumer 5mw laser from orbit?

Who knows?

A green laser pointer can reach up to 50 kilometers. The ISS is an average 250 kilometers from earth, so its highly unlikely. You may be able to detect the beam with specialized equipment, but at that distance it would not be visible to the naked eye.

You might enjoy this link,

www.universetoday.com...

We’ve seen lots of images and videos of city lights on Earth as seen from the International Space Station. But if you were down on Earth, flashing a light at the astronauts on the ISS – would they see you? The answer is now definitively, yes. Flashing the space station with beams of light as it passes overhead had never been successfully done—until this past weekend.

In a highly coordinated and engineered event, the astronomers flashed the two huge searchlights along with shining a one-watt blue laser at the ISS. Pettit explained some of the preparations in his blog on Fragile Oasis: “This took a number of engineering calculations, Pettit wrote. “Projected beam diameters (assuming the propagation of a Gaussian wave for the laser) and intensity at the target had to be calculated. Tracking space station’s path as it streaked across the sky was another challenge.”

Link

www.dailymail.co.uk...

originally posted by: samkent
With the number laser pointers out there I started to wonder.
If you can get past the aiming problem, could the crew on the ISS see a consumer 5mw laser from orbit?

A 1w 450nm should do the trick, 2watts better still. The 450nm has much lower atmospheric attenuation than something in 550 to 700nm flavour.

Cheers - Dave

I find the other way a lot more interesting...

originally posted by: samkent
With the number laser pointers out there I started to wonder.
If you can get past the aiming problem, could the crew on the ISS see a consumer 5mw laser from orbit?

You need a lot more power to reach orbit, and 1 watt green, and even 750mW Green LASER can be seen from orbit, A 1 watt green can destroy optical sensors on orbiting hardware and it only takes a moment to do damage and render very expensive things into space junk. One company already stopped offering anything in green over 750mW and even quit selling to the US market because people are not getting smarter and using them in ways that redefine themselves as more dangerous than zoo animals.
Zoo animals with a purpose..

Like Dave said also, the higher output blue lasers likely would, but I haven't worked with those too much. It is widely said that the coherent green lasers have the least problems for their light to go further than others. And easier to see with the human eye.