Another “green beam” to penetrate night sky
With the opening of the new Calibration and Optical Research Laboratory in Research Park comes another green laser shooting into the sky.
Space Dynamics Lab’s Tom Wilkerson said the new laser allows for data to be gathered about the atmosphere up to eight miles high.
The data gathered is useful for meteorology and NASA applications, he said.
This particular beam will not be completely stationary all the time, though. Wilkerson said the beam will move in a conical pattern around the Logan sky.
The laser starts out with the diameter of a quarter, but it spreads as it projects. At one mile in height, the laser will have expanded to be about five feet wide.
The third floor observatory of the new lab will be home to more than the visible green laser. It will also have infrared telescopes, a wide-angle digital color camera, and a CCD imager to track certain types of storm phenomena.