KTLA's Sky 5 Helicopter Reporter Spots Saturn and its rings

Pretty cool bit of aerial photography from helicopter Reporter/Photographer Gil Leyvas who was out filming the waning Super Blue Moon for KTLA but also captured impressive footage of Saturn and its rings , Saturn is currently at its closest orbital point to Earth.

a reply to: gortex

thats some pretty impressive zoom

great little video

thanks G-man

a reply to: UpIsNowDown2

thats some pretty impressive zoom

To Infinity and beyond.

a reply to: gortex

Well, that's very cool, and almost very scary at the same time.

KTLA has some cool gear, no doubt. They are a well funded network, and that lens wasn't cheap. Probably bordering on military grade stuff.

I've got a fairly high powered star telescope, and I can't come anywhere close to that, so that should tell you something.

Just imagine what these guys can do when wanting to invade on people's privacy...with a lens like that, and state of the arts stabilization multi-axis gimbal stabilization. The lens alone probably weighs 40-50 lbs., and the camera probably adds another 15lbs. The cost of the gimbal to stabilize that assembly onboard an airborne helo is likely on par with the cost of the helicopter itself which it's mounted to (just to put things in perspective).

Cool post though! S&F.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

What an informative post. thank you!

a reply to: WeMustCare

A long time ago, back in the mid-90's, I put in some image stabilized high powered FLIR cameras for the FAA. These were restricted military cameras (allowed only to government). Just the cameras were $2m per each. They weighed about 200 lbs each, and needed all weather hydraulics to stabilize them. Technology has come a LONG way since then, but just to give you an idea how cool these things were...

We could see a rabbit, at night, in a snowstorm, at approximately...2 miles. More, we could differentiate the rabbit from the fence it was standing next to, and track it at 60 frames per second.

I could tell you about some other technology, but I'd be bordering on divulging some classified info (but I think I'll be okay here)...many years later we put in some cameras at 'another' facility which could recognize and log every license plate on a key piece of highway, on a highway that had 100,000 cars per hour passing by it...in both directions. These cameras were over a mile from the highway in question (not like your in-lane traffic cameras you see all over). And...that was nearly 20 years ago now. Again, VERY expensive stuff, but people have NO idea the capability of current video technology, and certainly no idea about some of the advanced "analytics" which go along with these systems!

a reply to: gortex

Wow.
Imagine seeing something like that.

That is a really good camera the guy has. I suppose the zoom is needed to take close up pictures of things happening on the ground.

a reply to: gortex

Awesome! Thank you for posting this! SF

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Your explanation would make residents of Chicago even madder at the city police for saying they can't see most of the shooters, or license plates, with the 5,000 installed cameras, because the technology isn't as good as what the fantasy TV police shows indicate.

5 of every 10 murders are never solved, even though most are filmed.

frustrating I have been trying to get a look but we have been socked in with clouds and rain for weeks now since I got back to alaska.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Our police have ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras that flash up vehicles with no tax, MOT, no insurance or involved in drugs etc.

a reply to: gortex

Now that's something. Now let us see if they see us too

a reply to: gortex

I remember way back when California had some kind of scandal with tech companies. Not Enron or what caused Gray Davis to be recalled, it wasn't that long ago. Maybe 10 years ago? Anyway, we live near a former military base that was closed and repurposed as a drone base. But its still fed owned. It was an early Spring morning and i was out walking the dog and saw a succession of learjets flying one after the other heading west a few minutes apart. maybe 4 or 5 or 6 of them. From their low altitude I knew their point of origin and I had gone home and gotten binoculars to watch the last one fly by to get a better look at them. But I noticed a white orb that was not visible with the naked eye way up in the atmosphere. Small but not a star like a tiny white dot. I thought something was up in orbit, like a Death Star but much much smaller. It didn't move.
Then a night later I was off work and saw Jupiter in roughly the same location very late just before morning. That was the UFO. You can see planets during the day, did you know that?

originally posted by: Oldcarpy2
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Our police have ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras that flash up vehicles with no tax, MOT, no insurance or involved in drugs etc.

Okay????

What do they do about it??

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

They will stop you, summons you to court or issue fines, may impound and crush your vehicle, if drugs are found, arrest and charge you etc.

a reply to: Oldcarpy2

No doubt these days it also tells the police if the driver is a conservative or simply opposed to open borders.

Cheers

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Yeah, without getting into specifics, I recall technology that could track, let's just say, items of interest. Lots of IT equipment required and a phenomenal amount of data collected.

Cheers