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. Chris Peterson (Cloudbait Observatory) performed a couple experiments: 1) He allowed a tripod mounted green laser to momentarily intersect an area he was imaging - comparison of images with and without the laser revealed no difference. 2) About twenty feet from his telescope, he had a laser pointer track the same location as he was imaging for two minutes. The background level was slightly elevated but not significantly. The only ones that actually had any real problems with lasers in their images - had been themselves using the lasers as a finder on their telescope. The bottom line was that the only significant danger to imaging was if someone accidentally pointed the laser at the telescope (or the imager <g>). However, it was also mentioned that some star parties do ban them. In addition, etiquette would dictate that if someone really objects - then it's not something worth starting a row over. Clear skies, Dale.