A friend asked me to get him a MF02 since he liked mine so much. Of course I did and gave it to him yesterday. He lives on a mountain across the lake from me just over 8 miles away. He asked me if I would be able to see the light shine from so far away and I said, no, it's too far, but I agreed to go to the walkway on the lake at 10:30pm and call him on my cell anyway. Long story short, I bought my MF02 along too and I think we were both stunned. When he turned on his, it was like a huge sun appeared from the mountain and the same when I opened up mine from the opposite side of the lake.
He's 62 and was like a little kid playing with the best toy he ever had and I felt exactly the same way last night.
Nice to have a surprise like that, but I don’t know why you didn’t predict it, I mean look at how far away you can see car headlights, or building windows at night, when the light is not even aimed at you.
Seeing a light far away is far easier than seeing an object lit up from where the light is.
Regular streetlights can be seen from space which is 100km away.
When illuminating an object not only does the light have to travel twice the distance but it also has to bounce off objects which have very low reflectivity.
When just looking at a light you’ll be able to see it even if it’s 0.01 lux or less.
I am also curious, from a few kilometers away, how a thrower like MF02 lights differently than a flooder like MF01. I mean, how big and how bright the hotspots will look compared to one another.
Was thinking the exact same thing last night. I expected the MF02 being a thrower to produce a small blip, but it was exactly the opposite. I don't have any huge flooders but will try my Q8 in the next few days and see if there is any difference from that distance but being more of a flooder with a less concentrated beam, it may actually look smaller from far away.
I couldn't but it was the longest daylight of the year so the sky was still not dark here in BC. Maybe I could have seen the saber if the sky was dark enough, I don't really know.
That makes sense. Surfaces are not completely flat and in 180 90 degrees from the light, so only a tiny fraction of the photons are bounced right back to our eyes on their way back. Remove the need for the way back travel and many more photons are going to hit your eye.
Interestingly the angular diameter of the MF02 at 8 miles is similar to that of a large star (0.027”). And the resulting illuminance (lux) is similar to that provided by starlight. (The luminance of the sun is 1500 cd/mm^2)
