posted 10-11-2001 05:42 PM            

"I already had a pretty good 35mm camera, but to get
those planes in any detail I went up and up in lens
sizes only to find they were not getting close enough.
From what I can tell, these planes cruise at around
30,000- 35,000', that's like five miles.

When I though about it in those terms I realized a
normal telephoto lens was not going to be enough. I
was not at all familiar with photography (but oh how
I've learned!) so I researched into telescopes with
camera mountings. Much money later that's what I ended
up with: a Meade ETX125 with a 5" diam. reflecting
mirror and superior optics, mounted on a heavy duty
pro tripod (I found out at these long distances even a
light wind blurs it out of focus). For comparison, the
lens has a relative focal length of 1900mm, then I
added a 2X teleconverter between it and the camera.

Then came the film trials which set me back alot in
terms of time and money trying different combinations
with less then stellar results (as well as losing many
priceless shots). Here is the best I have found: Very
high film speed is needed, even for bright day
conditions. I am now settled on Fuji Superia 1600
speed film, but 1000 speed will do in the mid-day.
Since the telescope has a "fixed F-Stop" at 11, more
light needs to strike the film in order to get any
detail. To accomplish this with no F-stop control (it
is not changeable on the scope) I step down the camera
to shoot it at half of the film speed (telling it that
the film is HALF as light sensitive as it REALLY is).
Oh, also I lose 1 Fstop of light thanks to the
teleconverter!! More distance=sacrifice light." Hope that is what you wanted...

posted 10-12-2001 12:25 AM            

My respect for Mr. Raven – and his wallet -- goes up quite a bit; his use of an $800 Maksutov-Cassegrain spotter shows he is serious about his work. 1900 mm, based on the 43mm diagonal of 35mm film, is the equivalent of using 44 power binoculars.

Regards,

posted 10-14-2001 01:42 AM            

I know what your saying...but there was a stretch there when I viewed some really good ones...but the photos were lack luster....hardly an impression as good as the real time view...

welcome to the board raven...I like pictures even if they are of aircraft waste diposal....lol...

Jay was playing with photoshop....recently....is it memorex ?

http://www.stormpages.com/z71/jrs.html

posted 10-14-2001 10:00 PM            

Many thanks for your prompt and complete discussion of your system. Although I have an 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain scope, it is not really the first choice (due to the fork mount and lack of an erecting prism) for anything other than astrophotography.

My wife, who does a lot of wildlife photography, has been looking for a long lens; we'd considered a Leica APO Televid or one of the Swarovskis, but the Meade is in the same price range and, with it's fat 5-inch aperture, should be a much better light-bucket that the smaller refractors.

The spot where we differ profoundly is in the camera. Although I'd used both 35mm and medium-format cameras years ago, since getting a Nikon 990 last year, I have not made a single film exposure. Although the better cameras (like your F1) offer many advantages regarding lens interchangeability, speed of shooting, etc., I've found that my 990, with its 3.34 Mpixel CCD, will match 35mm film (especially high-speed film) to the point where it's almost impossible to tell what camera the photograph came from up to maybe 11 X 14 -- certainly 8 X 10.

The best advantage of a digital, of course, is the real-time capabilities to see your photograph immediately (in the LCD) or within ten minutes (on your computer screen via the Compact Flash USB download). ALL my photographs now are looking pretty good -- since I'm able to toss the 95% that are bad!!

Anyway, many thanks again for your help. As soon as my Finance Minister approves, I will get one of those superb Meades, and hope to have some photos on the net.

Regards,

posted 10-17-2001 05:22 PM            

There's not much mystery about what you see there. These are both shots of waste water venting overboard via the forward drainmast. On these aircraft (757/767/777), the effluent from the toilet does not go overboard: everything that you flush down a toilet goes into a tank which gets pumped out by a service truck while the plane is parked at the gate. So the toilet doesn't drain overboard...unless the service connection valve is leaking in flight. However, all other waste water from all the sinks and internal fuselage drains feed into a drainmast line, which drains immediately overboard. There are a couple of them, and the streamers in both those photos are clearly coming form the forward drainmast.

Next time you fly with someone else on one of these types of planes, if you have a view under the plane from the windows at the gate, get the other person to board first, and tell them to go into one of the forward lavs and just run the water into the sink for about five minutes while you watch from the window. You will eventually see the water running out of the drainmast and puddling on the ramp under the drain mast (as long as the drain line to the mast isn't blocked, which happens sometimes when the damn flight attendants try to wash coffee grounds or other material down the galley drains....).

Anyway, there is no big deal about those photos. You were just lucky enough to take the picture at the time when someone was running water in a handbasin, or the F/A's were rinsing something in the galley, or some such.

posted 10-18-2001 10:56 AM            

Also, I'm still trying to get a feel for this place, but it has some nice features. Like the ability to edit posts after the fact, which is great for me, as I tend to not notice my finger-fumbling spelling errors until AFTER I hit the send button!

posted 10-18-2001 11:23 AM            

Northern Calif.
Here is a casual observation; yesterday the 17th was a blitz day here for chemtrails. Low low level aircraft. At one time, about noon,I and the wife counted 15 trails at low level side by side going north to south.
A white out day quickly came into being.
Temps were mild, 70's and the relative humidity was 81%. Goes 10 sat. showed massive chemtrailing off of the Cal coast for most of the day.

posted 10-18-2001 12:24 PM            

But us scientists know that the consistent correlation of two events is not equivalent to proof, so I'm not drawing any conclusions.

posted 10-18-2001 01:41 PM            

Regarding my background: Not a problem, and I certainly understand why you ask: You don't want just any unqualified Joe butting in with unsupported claims! So I'll always try to provide supporting documentation for what I say.

I am a pilot (not airliners: just general aviation), and also the survivor of a fatal plane crash many years ago, in which my mother was killed. So I've taken a very close interest in all things related to aviation, and specifically to aviation safety. I co-host a Yahoo message board dedicated to aviation safety, and if you think it pertinent I'll be happy to post a link to that board. But I don't what you to think that I came here to advertise for my own board, so I'll only do that if you OK it, Thermit.

Anyway, as part of my passion for aviation safety, I became very interested in the still-mysterious crash of Swissair flight SR-111, back in September of 1999. Much of the discussion on the safety boards about that crash became very technical, due to the nature of the events leading up to the crash, and I started up a web site dedicated to being a repository of technical data relating to the crash, kind of a tehcnical reference with all the relevant daigrams, etc. Many members of the aviation safety board who are "insiders" in the industry started sending me detailed technical information about aircraft, and over the years I think I've learned an *awful* lot that I didn't know before about modern airliners! I don't claim to be an expert, but I think I've picked up a hell of a lot more than most people would ever be interested in knowing, and I have something of a stockpile of very useful technical info. I've been sent flight manuals, operating manuals, service manuals, checklists, technical manuals, diagrams, photos, maps, etc. The folks who have sent me this stuff are aircraft designers, mechanics, pilots, avionics technicians, baggage handlers, flight attendants, safety officers, and just about any one else in the industry you can think of. I haven't posted all of them on my web site (not by any means!), since much of what I have is company-specific, and these sources are worried that they could be traced if I happened to post something identifiable, so I've kept most of it to myself. The only stuff that I have posted is things that I've found to be common across several different versions of the same manual, and therefore untraceable.

So when I saw those "plane pee" photos, I pretty much knew what they were, but I want to make sure, so I checked through my stuff yesterday, and found what I was looking for: Drain masts. Then I contacted one of these "insiders" for confirmation as to my suspicions. He agreed, and told me some anecdotes about how mechanics, refuellers, baggage handlers, and other ground crew, all know to NEVER walk under a drain mast when the plane is at the gate! He also supplied the "coffee grinds" comment (obviously, out of personal experience!)

In any event, I'm going to try to post a couple of relevant diagrams that I found among my stuff, so that you can all see just what these things are. There is nothing sinister about them. They just dump waste water overbaord. In fact, I'd say the the term "plane pee" is pretty accurate!

I'm posting three images here below. I'm still getting used to this forum, so I hope this works:

All of these diagrams come from the 767 maintenance manuals.

The first one (below) shows the position of the drainmasts on some models of this aircraft (the exact position can vary, depending on the model), and how it looks from the inside, where it is attached to the fuselage. You'll not an interesting comment on the diagram: "Heater Tape". In other words, there is an electrical heater "sock" around the discharge tube, to heat the waste water so that it does not freeze immediately on exit. You don't want chunks of ice hammering the underside of your plane! That's why it comes out as a stream of liquid, and stays liquid for quite a while (OK, just for a couple of seconds really, but that's plenty long enough for it to be clear of the fuselage, which is all that you care about).

The second image (below) shows the location of the control panels for the manual drain of the aft water system. This is used to completely drain the system dry on the ground, for maintenance, (and also for flushing out the system when the Flight Attendants do their trick with the coffee grinds!).

And the third image (below) shows the control panel for the full water system, including the level indictors and the filler cap.

I don't know if this is helpful for anyone, but I thought it might be, so I posted it. I could go into a lot more detail if you want, but I think this should be enough to show just what it is that we are seeing in those photos is nothing more than waste water from the handbasins and galley sinks.

Stuart

posted 10-18-2001 01:46 PM            

Sorry! I didn't realize those diagrams were so BIG! Next time I'll try to shrink them down to a more maneagable size.

This forum is going to take some getting used to, but I LOVE some of these features!

posted 10-18-2001 01:54 PM            

I just noticed somewhat of a discrepancy: David says that his area in Northern California was blitzed WHILE the President was there, but after he left, so did the blitz.

On the other hand, 3T3L1 says that when the President was in Texas, the chemtrails were NOT around, as long as he was there.

Exactly the opposite.

So there is clearly no relationship at all between chemtrails and the presence of the President.... Which tends to indicate that the President and his entourage just don't care in the least about those trails.... which tends to suggest that they are not chemtrails.... Which tends to suggest that chemtrails do not exist....

posted 10-18-2001 02:23 PM            

As far as the President goes, there has never been much correlation one way or the other. I don't think Chemtrails are poison, rather an aerial innoculation intended to protect, so in my way of thinking, there wouldn't be any reason for any modification of operation based on the President's presence, or lack thereof anyway...

Stuart, will those pictures be there for a while? I'd like to get at least one in the Image Database. Also, feel free to add your link to the Link Database. Look for the link upload access in the Member's Area.

By the way, Stuart, do you feel that both of these pictures are the drain thing happening?

posted 10-18-2001 02:33 PM            

The Stewart Alsop I'm referring to died in 1974. I think there is another one now, who is a techno-wizard of some sort.

One of the excellent aspects of Thermit's board is, you can edit your posts. If you still wish to get your pictures down to a smaller size, may I suggest using html, like this:
<img src="http://www.digistar.cl/SR111/Drainmast1.jpg" width=433 height=272> or something similar. You probably know this already, but the numbers refer to pixels. There are 37 pixels per centimeter.

Regarding Bush and the disappearance of chemtrails: yes it does seem odd that they were there on the same day he was. I was thinking that they might've gotten the timing off by a day.

posted 10-18-2001 02:50 PM            

Do I think that both of those are the drain thing? I'd say yes. I may be wrong, but in both cases it looks like it. I can't even positively identify those aircraft, since the images are so fuzzy. If they were clearer, I could probably have a stab at ID, but it's very difficult to tell. However, it certainly looks like the streams are exiting in about the right place for most modern Boeing aircraft, and they certainly behave like streams of liquid.

posted 10-18-2001 03:14 PM            

Also, thanks for the tip on resizing photos! I'll be using that in a minute.

On your question about "frozen plane pee", yes it will freeze eventually, but all that the aircraft designers care about is that it stays liquid long enough to get totally clear of the fuselage. Once its clear, they don't care any more. So it will freeze at some point downstream, probably a few meters behind the aircraft tail. But by then, it should be fairly well misted into smallish drops, so it will probably freeze into little balls, not large solid chunks. Those will slowly fall towards the ground, and will melt and evaporate (or may be even sublimate) on the way down, as they reach warmer air. The waste water should never actually fall to the ground as ice or even water. It is supposed to evaporate in the air, long before it gets down to ground level.

But every now and then you do read about a large chunk that froze up, right on the drainmast itself, and then broke away and fell to the ground, frightening some poor soul out of their shoes! Or worse.... That can happen if the drain gets partially blocked (coffee grinds?), and the water does not exit properly. Instead of flowing out smoothly, it just leaks out slowly, and freezes into a solid chunk. When the chunk gets too big, it breaks off, and falls.