It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by Impetus
Well yea now the question is why are they shining a laser into the sky?
Maybe as a point of reference for star watching or something?
Originally posted by Booker’s
Originally posted by Impetus
Well yea now the question is why are they shining a laser into the sky?
Maybe as a point of reference for star watching or something?
Lasers are used for astrophotography. Because of heat differentials, the atmosphere "boils" and moves around, so they shoot a laser up and record how the laser is disturbed in the atmosphere. Then they create a "realtime filter" that reverses everything that happened to the laser (because the normal laser is absolutely steady, so they can easily compare the difference). Then they apply this "realtime filter" to the mirror of the telescope taking the photographs, and let it move the mirror, and cancel out the movements of the starlight caused by the "boiling" sky. As a result, the starlight is "corrected" by subtracting the "boiling atmosphere," and the resulting photograph is sharp, rather than blurry from the "boiling" sky.