[Laser] Sky illumination experiment

[Tim Toast]

Kerry, 
Angry home owners associations, black helicopters and
astronomers aside, 80 watts is plenty of light. Much
more and you'd be attracting the men-in-black :D 

But yeah, compared to typical football stadiums, light
pollution is miniscule, especially if you direct most
of the light straight up and away from the neighbors. 
It might be hard to find a large IR filter for
something that size but i dont think those tubes put
out very much light at IR wavelengths anyway, so its
probably a lost cause trying to stealth them that way.
A regular filament type light bulb does however put
out a lot of IR light and would be easier to find IR
filters big enough cheaply and also to focus a
narrower beam if you wanted. 

I was thinking since these frequencies are all in the
audio range, and if one was lacking an exotic power
supply, you could use a regular off-the-shelf audio
power amp in the 100 watt range. Then match its 8 or 4
ohm output to the impedance of the tube(s). Matching
it to such an oddball capacitive load might be a
problem with the florescent tubes though. A regular
light bulb would probably be easier to match. 

At any rate, PSK31 modulation springs to mind since
this is all nice and sinusoidal. 
good luck
-_-


Tim Toast
http://www.aladal.net/toast/exp.html

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