Your eye's been fooled by the magnification I used. I live down in the heart of the Valley, at least ten miles from the hills. If it weren't for intervening trees and buildings, the shot would have spanned from sealevel up to the peak. As it was, I had to carefully adjust my tripod to make the line of sight between telephone wires and poles and the trees, used the highest resolution of my camera, and then cropped just that tiny keyhole view. Not only that, I have to confess that it took me three days of trying to catch the scene with the sun breaking through the clouds.

But I definitely would like to see the laser in action. I'm curious whether it might be visible at this distance, assuming enough particulates in the air. Ever seen the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas at night? They have lasers pointing straight up and they're visible from everywhere in the Vegas valley. For a while there it seemed they'd started a fad and all the other hotels were lighting up the sky with lasers, to the point that the FAA threatened to shut everybody down for fear of blinding pilots. I've heard that airline pilots report seeing the Luxor beams from well inside California. In good weather it's easy to find Las Vegas at night--just fly toward the pillar of light, turn right at the Luxor, and then make a 180 left to line up with the runway.

I don't know if I have the right stuff for planespotting. I'd probably fall asleep. In any case, considering how dense is the traffic in the airspace above the Bay Area, I'd imagine that they've had to come up with something more sophisticated than people with binocs. Maybe some kind of link to the ATC traffic control computers. Planes overflying the observatory wouldn't be the exception, they'd be the rule.