Good questions. It wasn't specifically stated, but, looking at Chris Peterson's observatory instrumentation (www.cloudbait.com) I would assume it was narrow field imaging . His scope is a 12" LX200 (~3000mm fl). It would probably be good to also do a widefield experiment. But, generalizing from the various comments (as I'm prone to do <g>) I would think the results should basically be the same. In other words, for a widefield image I would expect: 1) If the laser is very close to the imaging scope pointing at the same location (for a long time) there would be a background gradient caused by the laser. This could probably mess up the image to some extent. 2) The greater the distance from the scope to the laser - both pointing at the same location in the sky - the slighter the gradient. The image should be okay. 3) If the laser is "zipped" across the location where the telescope is pointing, it would probably be no big deal. It would be a fun experiment. Clear skies, Dale.
-----Original Message----- From: Chuck Hards [mailto:chuckhards@yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 3:04 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Laser pointer and imaging "basically" an urbanlegend
--- Dale Hooper <Dale.Hooper@sdl.usu.edu> wrote:
There was a discussion on the SBIG CCD yahoo group over the past couple of days about laser pointers and whether they really do mess things up for imagers. There was some really good empirical data presented that says it is basically much ado about not much.
What was the system focal length for the test shots? Was this for through-the-scope, high powered imaging only, or was wide-angle imaging tested also? (50mm & shorter e.f.l.)
C.
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