It's worthwhile to point out what makes a laser a laser- coherent, monochromatic light. Even if the laser light were invisible to a human looking at the earth through a telescope, a bit of filtering would easily improve the signal-to-noise ratio enough to make it visible. Also, frequency modulation of the laser beam (that is, the laser pulses would be precisely timed) is another means of pulling the signal out of the background noise. Since you're concerned with communication between 2 satellites, atmospheric distortion isn't a factor, and you'd only have to guarantee sufficient pointing accuracy of the lasers. My guess is that a laser diode from a CD player would have all the output power you'd need. ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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