Reading articles on the net I have read comments suggesting that the tracking of the plane with the laser would have required sophisticated equipment.
Thinking about it, I realize that this is unlikely to be true.
Consider the following: The laser illuminated the cockpit presumably through the front windows. This means that the laser was located almost directly in front of the plane. At 8500' soon before landing it is a no-brainer that the plane was descending. So the plane was virtually heading straight for the laser. Even though its airspeed was several hundred of knots, its motion relative to the laser (i.e. its angular velocity measured from the laser) would have been very close to zero.
So assuming that the laser was mounted in a way to prevent vibration and had some sort of simple mechanical controls for fine tuning the direction it would not be difficult to keep it aligned with the plane. Especially if the mount also had optics to see where the beam was hitting.
I believe that lasers used in construction have all of these requirements (along with sufficient power).
The only hard part is finding a plane heading straight for the laser (which might not be that hard for certain locations on commonly used approaches), and getting it initially lined up.
As for the issue of getting it lined up in the first time: We don't know how many times the operator had attempted this without success.
