A pulsed laser illumination system for streak camera recording of impact‐induced shock wave transit times (∼1 &mgr;s) during impact experiments is described. Laser illumination of centimeter‐sized subjects offers many advantages over diffuse illumination techniques for streak photography. Source‐to‐sample and sample‐to‐camera distances of ∼100to 102m can be employed. Light filtering, and simultaneous recording of both the impact event and the camera streak rate calibration, can be carried out easily. For use in such a system we describe a Pockels cell controller in which the reference 10‐MHz oscillator signal is synchronously divided down to 38 Hz to provide a trigger signal for laser and streak camera testing.