Don't think he's getting that close to Hawaii, but a "laser salute," like the lights of Perth for John Glenn, might have been cool. How far away is your laser visible? The photo you showed looked very bright, but that might just have been the exposure.

In reality the laser appears somewhat dimmer than the photos. If you are near the scope the laser is IMPOSSIBLE to miss... but it does not appear to be the solid pillar that the photos show... (However when I was visiting the other laser at Lick observatory in preparation for my interview here the beam looked like an almost solid object due to the larger number of particulates in the air near San Jose- I was there the night that this airplane spotter was writing about: http://ephemeris.sjaa.net/0210/b.html )

Anyway, This morning I got a special treat... I left the scope at 3 am with my assistant running the laser. As I got into the company SUV I saw that the beam was pointing south, nearly over the ridge I had to drive back down on...

I drove to the end of the ridge and stopped and got out to look. I was just under a kilometer away- I could see the open dome and the yellow glow from the beam scattering a little on the .5 meter output lens. I could see the faint beam stretching out across the sky above me- it was the first time I had seen it from a distance. Even at that distance I didn't need to take time to let my eyes adjust to see it...

I found it satisfying to see on many levels... First it was breathtaking, second it meant that the laser was FINALLY at a point that I could let it run without my being there, and third I knew whatever it was pointing at would result in a paper or two in a few months... Expanding what we know of the universe- we ran for 4 nights in a row with one minor laser problem that took 20 minutes to fix... Clear skies every night... And apparently we blew the Hubble out of the water yet again, several times :)

The astronomers were happy, They got to see things at a far higher resolution than was ever possible before the laser... One has said that observations with the laser write their own papers... You are guarenteed to see something new...

That is what I call job satisfaction!