Invisible beam

The German Lidar, an upper atmospheric instrument used over Winter by Bernie (real name Berndt) was thought to be invisible to human eyes. This turns out to be not the case! Australian Lidar operator, Laser Dave, discovered this.

On a walk past the German laser to Australia's he picked up a slight movement out of the corner of his eye. The movenment was in fact his own but the way the stationary beam appeared to move with respect to the backdrop of stars was what caught his eye.

Operating just on the threshold of human vision, cameras detect the beam much more easily. So check out the pics. There have been various descriptions of what the German Lidar looks like to the eye, but I would say this: It is barely perceivable at first, though I had just stepped out from Hydroponics and my eyes needed a long time to adjust to the dark. It looks like a very faint spotlight, the beam doesn't appear sharp and defined like lasers in the visible range but rather diffused and much like a torch beam lit up by smoke or haze, but more faint.