Message posted by gary on August 22, 2002 at 18:38:34 PST:

Actually, the lens is not the limiting factor in that photograph, but rather the atmosphere. This is because the photograph was taken through a column of air at ground level. If I could get more height, it would be much sharper.

I did look at the plane through binoculars, but I don't think it was much clearer than the photograph. To my recollection, the photograph was done at 1500mm equivalent focal length (500mm/4.5 lens probably stopped down two stops and a 3x teleconverter). I try to keep the shutter speed around 1/60th to 1/125 so that thermal waves are not integrated. [They tend to flutter around 10Hz).

I could have sworn there were DLR readers in Palmdale. Take a Sunday drive to Helendale and give us a second opinion. ;-) I'm curious if the plane is still there.

In Reply to: Re: just returned from helendale posted by Andreas Parsch on August 22, 2002 at 14:30:12 PST:

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