Originally Posted by
kokpit
Thanks Pontius Navigator. I realise that video's have a hellish zoom, but initially I was really sceptical that someone could video an aircraft at cruise altitude from the ground.
This was one of my reasons for doubting the 'video of the event'.
I was discounting any electronic zoom, as that typically degrades the end result too much, but the camera in the example has a 500 optical zoom.
However, it seems it certainly can be done, but judging by the very small number of results through Google, I suspect it isn't something that is easy or often brings about the desired results.
I played with this last evening. Using a 6 inch telescope, I can see airliners flying at cruise altitude 30-40 miles away, in better quality than the alleged ISIS video. I can even take pictures directly through the eyepiece using a cell phone. The tricky part is tracking the aircraft, since, at that zoom level, they cross the field of view in mere seconds, especially if they are flying perpendicular to line of sight. And taking pictures would require either a helper or some way to hold the phone/camera in place.
I'll try the same tomorrow with a DSLR camera and a camera-telescope adapter.