San Francisco celebrated its 175th birthday on Tuesday, and that’s why Tuesday night, some artists were shooting colorful ‘Laser Space Cannons’ toward the City Hall rotunda in celebration.

Yesterday was 415 Day, which is not just our area code, it was also the 175th anniversary of San Francisco being incorporated on April 15, 1850. And there was a dazzling surprise in store for out nighttime skyline, as SFGate reports that some creative artists were shooting giant laser cannons at City Hall Tuesday night for a colorful display to celebrate the occasion.  

The whole rig came courtesy of the creative types at Illuminate, the folks behind the Bay Lights on the Bay Bridge, the rainbow lasers for Pride Weekend that we’ve seen since 2022, and the laser cannons for the 2023 APEC Conference.

But this one was kind of a last-minute job, as the announcement was not made until Monday, the day before the display. “We were able to move quickly because Illuminate operates within a long-standing, high-trust network here in San Francisco,” Illuminate founder Ben Davis told SFGate.

Another reason this could be pulled off in short order is that the Illuminate crew now has a van called the AweMobile, which they say is equipped with nine Laser Space Cannons. That AweMobile was tested out in the first weekend of April at Sutro Baths, as seen above.

But wait, is “Laser Space Cannon” even a real term? Yes it technically is, as the company that makes them is in fact called Laser Space Cannon. That company is highly respected in the laser-shooting community, and their laser cannons are even used in the Sacramento Kings’ popular Light the Beam” celebrations.

Related: Those Pride Weekend Laser Cannons Will Be Back for July 4th Weekend, But They’ll Be Red, White, and Blue [SFist]

Image: ciurana via Reddit