How Light is an 800mm Lens? Although...

[gonzalu]

I think he mistakenly confused the 600mm it is with an 800mm, it is still a cool video...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI8ldDyr3G0&feature=player_embedded

[Zee71]

Very cool.....nice equipment as well. Nikon is the choice of NASA.

[billv]

Awesome video, especially viewed full screen at 720p!

[flyboy 28]

That's pretty awesome. I wonder what they use those types of massive lenses for onboard the ISS. I figure if they're taking satellite photos or something similar, they'd use a fixed camera onboard the station or something.

[billv]

That's pretty awesome. I wonder what they use those types of massive lenses for onboard the ISS. I figure if they're taking satellite photos or something similar, they'd use a fixed camera onboard the station or something.

One use of those teles is photographing the shuttle's tiles for damage before she docks with the ISS.

[mattdueck]

Cool Video. My one thought that came during viewing was, how much those lenses cost here on earth. In NASA's budget just pennies. Way to go NASA with Nikon.

[gonzalu]

That's pretty awesome. I wonder what they use those types of massive lenses for onboard the ISS. I figure if they're taking satellite photos or something similar, they'd use a fixed camera onboard the station or something.

Simple, they take pictures of Earth :-)

Start here and pick camera model and hit search...

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/technical.htm

Here is a sample search result

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/clickmap.pl?hashnumber=6518&fieldlist=GEON,FEAT,LAT,LON,PDATE&options=none

Click the Quick View and images retain metadata.

[gonzalu]

Here is one shot with the 300-800mm lens on a D3X !!

ftp://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ESC_large_ISS025_ISS025-E-14309.JPG

and after auto levels and resize/sharpen for web

http://manny.smugmug.com/photos/i-Z5dFL7x/0/O/i-Z5dFL7x.jpg