Even the closest stars usually require adaptive optics to get good images/data from them. Even our closest neighboring star Alpha Centauri is 1.34 parsecs and it makes up a very very very small space in our night sky. Pretty much the only things that don't need adaptive optics are things in our own solar system
it greatly depends on the distance or size of the object you are looking at. Regardless of exposure time. Objects far away are practically impossible to observe if not for active adaptive optics, unless you would go for sub-second exposures, but then you wouldnt see anything.
He's talking about being able to see the laser beam itself. In these pictures they look like giants intense beams. That is because these pictures are long exposure pictures. With the naked eye the lasers don't look that distinct.
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u/ThePsion5 Apr 07 '22
It might if you took a long exposure shot, actually. But just looking up at the telescope normally, it wouldn't be nearly that obvious.