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shallowdeep -> RE: What Happens..... (8/8/2013 9:29:22 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MasterG2kTR
What happens when…..when you point a laser into a campfire??
Well, it's at least what gets recorded when you point a couple lasers with special lenses at a digital camera through some smoke. :)
quote:
ORIGINAL: WebWanderer
Whooooooa! I've finally found the motivation to go camping! I just wonder how strong the laser pointer would have to be to produce such results. It'd be a shame to go camping and get eaten by bears (I'm lucky like that) and not even get the cool laser fire show.
If the laser show was your sole reasons for camping, and you just brought a typical, single-beam laser pointer, you'd be disappointed. The diverging green beams are caused by a diffraction grating lens attached to the laser, not by any interaction with the campfire. Furthermore, the bright purple clouds wouldn't be nearly so striking in person, as the effect is in large part a result of the camera sensor's sensitivity. Pretty much the only thing the campfire contributes is some moving smoke to make the beams visible.
The lasers used in the video were apparently pretty powerful: a 250 mW green (532 nm) laser to produce the spreading green lines and a 1 W indigo (445 nm) laser which is responsible for most of the cloud effect. But that sort of power is overkill; with the appropriate gratings, much weaker lasers would create the same effect, although it might not show quite as well until the surroundings got a bit darker. Without appropriate eye protection (which the guy filming was wearing, according to what appears to be the original source of the video) the lasers used in the video are pretty dangerous. Probably more so than bears.
Even without lasers though, camping is fun. If you are worried about the bears, just be sure to bring along a slower "friend" or relative. Remember, you don't actually need to outrun the bear…
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