Telescope for planespotting

[Alien 13]

A DSLR will invert the image anyway so things should be the right way up, one thing to mention though is that some reflectors will struggle to focus with a DSLR (not enough focus movement) so you will need to check this before purchase.

[Major]

Heard about this too.... How does it look like in Skyliner?

[JED-E3]

The skyliner will focus fine you just need a t-adapter to suit your dslr, it screws directly onto the telescope focuser.

The image in my profile picture is the International Space Station taken with a canon 7d with 1.4x teleconverter on my 200p skyliner, I tracked it while looking through the finder scope and every time it passed through the cross hairs I fired the remote release, the hit rate was quite high.

[Major]

That's very helpfull. Thanks!

[Okeydokey]

Really interesting thread, thank you for asking that question!   Purely by coincidence I was trying to manually track a few aircraft today with my refractor, purely practice, to get ready at capturing the ISS or for that matter anything else in close orbit.  Today has been clear and bright and I had some success, might have to get around to trying to photo capture some of the planes in detail, perfect practice, and sounds quite a challenge.  They are in close orbit after all

What would cruising altitude be btw?  Is there a way to determine this with any accuracy?

[Charic]

Okeydokey........ordered a T-Ring today for my camera? Try this for altitudes? http://planefinder.net/

[Major]

Okeydokey

good to know that I won't be an outcast here . Usually cruising altitude is about 8-10 kilometers. I use www.flightradar24.com - well known site for most airplane's tracking. You can even see private and military craft - thanks to that I was able to spot and photo two italian air force's 767 and I seen one later at RIAT

If you manage to take any pictures, please feel free to share them with me .

Cheers
Tom

[Mr Q]

IMPORTANT!  This activity can be extremely dangerous to your eyesight!

When I first started observing with my first scope at age 12, I soon got frustrated in trying to find objects (no internet back in the late 50s) and started to look at planes flying to/from a local airport as well as high flying commercial jets into Boston's Logan Airport. All was going well as I quickly learned the skill of aiming my refractor ahead of the aircraft and while watching it fly by the FOV, then followed it with ease ( even low flying a/c), I was not paying attention  to where the planes coarse was headed. Though I never tried taking photos, I quit doing this dangerous activity when the a/c's flight took it very close to the Sun, which was in a different part of the sky at the time of first tracking the plane.

 Not  aware that my tracking took my view passed near the Sun, the FOV brightened greatly and then darkened as the scope's view passed only a couple of degrees from the Sun. I was amazed at how far the plane traveled as I observed it in the scope. I was extremely lucky that day in not instantly burning my retina and causing permanent blindness if the plane passed closer to the Sun. As the pictures posted were at a safe angle from the Sun and shows dramatic details, be VERY careful in doing this activity and keep the Sun out of the area of the sky you are observing at as well as the plane's coarse !

   I'm very surprised no one posted any such warning about this subject so before the thread gets burried, I felt it my duty to warn people doing this activity or planning to.

[Major]

Mr Q

this is very important thing to consider. As yet, I never looked through telescope, but there are days that most of things I see are magnified 16 times. I am lucky that sun is usually behind me, but few times I looked directly onto our star through binos... What can I say, it was very strange feeling and not the one you want to have anymore. Everyone has to be very cautious and aware of plain danger to their eyes.