TORONTO – Chris Vaughan is a geologist by day. But by night, you can find him outside with his telescope, conducting public astronomy education tours of the universe. But pointing out a single star in a sea of stars can be difficult, particularly when you’re trying to show it to someone unfamiliar with the night sky. That’s when Vaughan takes out his green laser pointer. “Much the same as a picture is worth a thousand words, a few seconds with the laser far outweighs many minutes of frustrating pointing and waving or physically grabbing and moving people in the dark to get them oriented,” said Vaughan, who is a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC), Toronto Centre. “Pointing out star patterns to people who don’t own telescopes allows them to quickly learn some celestial geography that they’ll retain from having seen it firsthand.” The green laser pointer, or GLP, is a pen-sized pointer with a powerful green beam of light. The light generates near-infrared light and then focuses it, passing it into a crystal that emits the green light. The strength of these lasers vary, but are typically about 5 milliwatts and up. Astronomers use green lasers to point out stars and constellations during public outreach programs. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images) But lately there has been a growing concern among astronomers and police officials about the devices. Rather than these lasers being used for educational or professional purposes, people are entertaining themselves with them, often shining the light into cockpits of planes or helicopters. And these incidents of pilots being “lased” — temporarily blinded while flying — are on the rise. In 2010, Transport Canada reported 183 incidents of a green laser being pointed at a pilot. By 2011, that number rose 25 per cent, to 229. In 2012, the number soared to 371 reported incidents. “I don’t know why you would think it would be fun to flash an airplane,” said Daniel Sunder, National Chair of the Canadian Federal Pilots Association Captain Barry F. Wiszniowski, Flight Safety Division Chairman of the Air Canada Pilots Association is very concerned about the safety of both pilots and passengers. “During critical phases of flight, when our depth perception, our visual acuity and situational awareness needs to be at its maximum, it can all be destroyed. And that’s the threat to the passengers on the aircraft, passengers in the vicinity of the airport,” he said. “They did a study with the FAA where they measured a pilot’s performance without the distraction of the laser and [with it]… And in that study they found that 75 per cent of the pilots had a degradation of their performance in their ability to properly carry out a missed approach…or the landing. It is the distraction level during the critical phase of flight that is of significant issue to the pilots operating an aircraft.” But more and more people who are misusing these lasers are being charged. This past February a 30-year-old Langley, B.C. man was given a five-month conditional sentence after pointing a laser at an RCMP helicopter in April 2011. The most recent incident took place in Nova Scotia this June. A green laser was aimed at a passenger jet as it was making its approach to the Halifax Stanfield International Airport. The RCMP continues to investigate. Paul Heath, President of the RASC, Halifax Centre, is concerned about the proliferation of green lasers. globalnews.ca/news/675692/pilots-being-temporarily-blinded-by-green-lasers-a-concern-to-astronomers/
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 05:19:50 +0000
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