mesoiam Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Anyone been to see this? There's an interesting rainbow laser show currently on in North Tyneside near newcastle. I'm wondering if anyone knows the details of the gear they're using. They have lasers of the seven colours of the rainbow. Two questions I have for those of a Laser disposition:-Why did one of the lasers look like it was two separate colours? It looked like a bit of bleeding of a different colour at the edge of the beam (like when you have a misaligned colour wheel on a moving light, I wouldn't have thought you would get this with a laser)-Why were there six units and not seven with the 'blue' being reflected across from the same point as the red?( just about visible in the photo) If anyone knows about this or indeed worked on setting it up I'd love to hear more about it. John http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2012/03/rainbow-3.jpg http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2012/03/rainbow-2.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick512 Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 here you go LightWave supplied the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slipstream Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Wonder how much choosing 7 colours pays, and if I accidentally split white light through a prism, do I have to pay her royalties? Wish I was an artist! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the kid Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 But it's not a laser that way!!! The one thing I missed is what it's "range" is in one of the images it seems to be really wide and diffused so it must have been a fair old distance, or am I wrong that "even lasers have a beam angle just so small its pointless measuring"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigclive Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 If they're solid state lasers then they only come as standard in a few colours, so are usually combined with dichroic mirrors to create other colours. For instance, red and green are combined for yellow. Lasers do have "divergence" which is generally down to the length of the lasing cavity. they do spread out over distance, although it doesn't look like it when you are viewing from the laser end of the beam. "Mattern intends the rainbow to encompass geographical and social diversity in its reach and symbolise hope." Oh WOW! YES! I completely got that. (No not really.) I think "rainbow" is effect option number 5 on my Chong-Wang dskobeem 3000 RGB scanning laser. Here's a video of a similar effect in action:- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick512 Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 The one thing I missed is what it's "range" is in one of the images it seems to be really wide and diffused so it must have been a fair old distance. The range is 50+ miles and the total wattage is just around 300w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 "Mattern intends the rainbow to encompass geographical and social diversity in its reach and symbolise hope." Oh WOW! YES! I completely got that. (No not really.) You see this is why she is being paid $$$$ to display her laser artwork all over the world, but we are grovelling around in dark corners with 15A plugs.I've often thought that the key to being a successful installation artist is the ability to write this guff convincingly. Maybe we could have a blue room competition? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigclive Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 So I take it there must be a target to stop this power of laser from extending beyond a set distance? They wouldn't just be firing it into free space would they? I've often thought that the key to being a successful installation artist is the ability to write this guff convincingly. Maybe we could have a blue room competition? No. The key to being a successful installation artist is having buddies that have access to the wad of our cash handed out wily-nilly to the "art" community. Here in Glasgow we used to have an event called Radiance every two years where temporary illuminated exhibits were placed around the city centre, often in hidden areas that you had to find with a free map. Sadly they often approached the existing art clique and paid them over the odds for mediocre stuff that was often as bland as a coloured fluorescent tube in a shop window or a neon sign propped up on a chair that said "NEON". Worse still was that many of the artists simply got someone else to do the work for them and took the credit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramdram Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Ref a target for the lasers...presume if the rays are "grazing" the surface of the planet and they are reputed to have a 50+ miles range (has to be many times that really though I suggest, despite any attenuation) then the altitude of the ray(s) after 50+ miles is going to be several miles above the surface anyway. Presume the aviation authorities were consulted first though??? Perhaps Cedd might know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musht Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Divergence takes care of power over distance, beam will diverge naturally and atmospheric scattering spreads it more, as the beam fans out, power density drops off by, er, a lot. At 50 miles need darn good eyesight to see a beam... Trick with this installation would be to get the colours to look balanced, green appears a lot brighter than red or deep blue to the human eye. Like anything bright pointing in the sky think CAA would prefer to be notified. Favourite for duff public lighting ` art installations` was Lux Europa in Edinburgh long time ago, featured things like a half a circle gobo in white on a building, the other half of the `artwork` was projected onto a building in Amsterdam apparently, rotating gobos onto Salisbury Crags using xenon Strong Gladiators and tourist postcards projected onto the Castle Rock complete with slide changer pause. BT refused to pay for the giant slide projector in the end and other sponsors expressed `dis-content`. That said this looks like one of those artworks that the sponsors and public are seeing something for the money and might encourage them to spend again. >>Worse still was that many of the artists simply got someone else to do the work for them and took the credit. Have had at least one arts collective looking for LED advice , when a quick flick through their portfolio revealed a history of `adopting` other peoples technical developments and branding them as their own. The trick of a truly great artist is to do that so blatantly that you get hailed as a genius for doing so: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/may/19/claredyer1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramdram Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Ref your point about he attenuation of "a" beam, found this: http://www.osa-opn.org/Blog/post/2008/03/26/Image-of-the-near-side-of-the-moon-taken-by-the-Clementine-mission.aspx for them as is interested. So if anyone here was thinking of doing an arts project (geddit? groan) with a laser...onto the moon, just for example, then note the speculated amount of power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rossmck Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Presume the aviation authorities were consulted first though??? Perhaps Cedd might know? CAA are always notified of these things, and NOTAMs issued for the affected area... this particular one is described as a "LASER DISPLAY" but with a radius of 1 Nautical Mile, which seems a little on the low side, but enough that any pilots in the area would be aware of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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