4 ms·
can amateurs bounce photons off the mirrors left there by Apollo 17 yet or does it still need industrial grade lasers?
by ck2 7mo ago
can amateurs bounce photons off the mirrors left there by Apollo 17 yet
or does it still need industrial grade lasers?
- minetest2048 6mo agoGetting industrial grade lasers is the easy part.. it seems to be within range of aliexpress available tattoo removal laser (based on the laser pulse energies listed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiments#List_of_observatories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment... and rough laser tattoo removal energies listed in https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10421900/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10421900/ .. take aliexpress rating with grain of salt) You do need access to a large telescope (at least 1.2m based on the wiki article), a sensitive detector (is photomultiplier tube sensitive enough??) and most importantly, access to your local laser clearinghouse so you don't accidentally shoot an airplane, blind the pilot and got arrested, or a satellite and start a war (if you believe some guy on quora). Probably the last part is the hardest thing for an amateur