Safe green laser for gift, please reccomend

I want to give my mom a laser pointer for sharing her love of astronomy with others, in other words, point out stars. She is not irresponsible, but any laser I give her will probably find itself in the hands of someone who is at some point, so I am concerned about safety.

What I am looking for is something bright enough to see the beam in the dark, but not so bright that kids horsing around will lead to injury.
It need not be especially well made as it will probably get lost before it is broken or wears out.

Any reccomendations?
Deal Extreme has a 5mW for about $16. Is it any good?

mrme said:

I want to give my mom a laser pointer for sharing her love of astronomy with others, in other words, point out stars. She is not irresponsible, but any laser I give her will probably find itself in the hands of someone who is at some point, so I am concerned about safety.

What I am looking for is something bright enough to see the beam in the dark, but not so bright that kids horsing around will lead to injury.
It need not be especially well made as it will probably get lost before it is broken or wears out.

Any reccomendations?
Deal Extreme has a 5mW for about $16. Is it any good?

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Be careful, kids horsing around even with a 5mw Green Laser can damage someones eyes. Probably the only thing "safe" one would be 1<mw.

However a 1mw greenie wouldn't work for astronomy. the beam wouldn't be visible enough for pointing out stars. Is your mother responsible enough to make sure people are not using it irresponsibly? The 5mw dX is a good pointer but may not have enough power either. I've used 20mw and above for astronomy and it works very well. The beam is very clear in the dark and you can show off any constelation with no problems. It all comes down to the owners responsibility. Being an owner of a laser regardless of the output power means having to make sure that no one is using the laser irresponsibly. Even a 1mw shined into someone's eye long enough can cause permenant eye damage and if it was someone else who owned the laser it would be thier fault for allowing the person to shine the laser into someone elses eyes.

5mw is plenty.

Yup, go for a 5mW.

It takes a deliberate effort to do any damage with a 5mW so your mum will be fine with that.

If she becomes addicted to lasers and wants to upgrade to a 125mW, then thats another story:nana:

I agree on the pwoer, though I have my doubts on using it for astronemy... also I might advise you look eslewhere than DX, because their lasers (1) have veeeeeeeeeery slow shipping, and (2) may be rather fragile, as several ppl have had problems with them after just average use, and no true abuse...

I wish I had a place to reccomend, but all my lasers are reds, and where I bought my main one, WL, is known for havingt problems wiht it's greenies... I'm told Atlas Nova has some good ones, though, that keeps circulating around here. I'm also told the owner makes customer service his top priority. Just a suggestion based on other's experiances.

Go to atlasnova.com. Arnold will do you right.