Ralf Ottow is a man who has been making lights sense he was a kid, and now has constructed a flash light powerful enough to touch the clouds. Ottow is an optics engineer from Holland who has been working on the “Maxablaster” flashlight. the Maxablaster is made up of a highly powerful mercury arc bulb. A mercury arc bulb makes light by creating a plasma between two electrodes inside the lamp. This creates a much brighter light, 38 million candle power to be exact, but also puts out a lot of harmful UV rays. To prevent this, Ottow placed a protective cover on the bulb. So what’s the catch? A flashlight this powerful needs a lot of…well, power. The Maxablaster is powered by 54 nickel-metal-hydride batteries and also contains a ballast to regulate the power. A safety feature was also added by making it key operated so not just anyone can pick up the Maxablaster and start giving everyone sunburn.
The maxablaster is powerful enough to place light on clouds around 4 miles high. Ottow also says that he has been able to shine light on a fairy boat that was around 9 miles away! Personally I think this flashlight is really impressive. I like the thought that we are able to create such powerful items, in this case light, and still make it portable. The fact that something with this much power can still be contained in something now larger then a heavy duty flashlight is amazing. If you would like to see more pictures of the actual devices, there are a few more here.
-Bryan Tobin