How to Identify Drones Optically at Night

[joema]

There has been lots of discussion about how to identify drones at night. There is a general helpless tone that implies there is no easy answer, or it requires new radar systems, etc. There are endless examples of smartphone imagery showing blurry dots -- as if that defines the limit of what is possible.

But there are existing, rapidly deployable optical methods of identification. Examples: a large-aperture telephoto lens on a mirrorless camera, or a portable telescope, a spotting scope, or even high-quality 50mm binoculars.

Here is an extreme example where an amateur obtained high-resolution video of the International Space Station in orbit as it flew across the sky:
Source: https://youtu.be/peozuHGLihg


Lest anyone say, "But the drones are moving too fast," I've seen multiple interviews claiming the drones loiter in the same area for hours. During that interval, you could drive to the store, buy a camera, 400 mm lens and tripod, come back to the location, and obtain high-quality video or still imagery.

There are already lots of skilled people who do birdwatching, plane spotting, etc. If at sensitive facilities there is concern over repeated "drone" intrusions, they need not wait for some expensive new radar system to identify those. Example 4k night video of commercial planes by amateur plane spotter:

Source: https://youtu.be/01mAdUJgTOg?t=61


Source: https://youtu.be/p6FnSCVfI6E?t=116

 

[roger1440]

A DSLR camera would work just as good as a mirrorless camera. Regardless of the camera used a gimbal for telephoto lens would be a necessity. I use the Nikon D5600 DSLR camera with the Sigma 150-600 mm Contemporary Lens mounted on a tripod. It's nearly impossible to frame a shot of a moving subject without a gimbal. I don't own a gimbal. I have many pictures of birds but they are nearly always on the ground. I think many of these sightings are not drones or UFOs being piloted by little green men. They are simply planes. I could be wrong. If I am wrong I'm ready for them aliens. I have a spare room I'm not using. I been looking for a room mate anyway.

 

[joema]

Regardless of the camera used a gimbal for telephoto lens would be a necessity.

Here are some high-altitude plane videos using a Nikon P1000 camera and a regular video tripod. They are about seven miles high, but the slant range on some shots is greater, probably 10 to 15 miles. That camera would not be ideal for low-light night shots, but there are commonly available cameras and lenses which could do that.

Source: https://youtu.be/ZANkrmRG9Wg

 

[roger1440]

Here are some high-altitude plane videos using a Nikon P1000 camera and a regular video tripod. They are about seven miles high, but the slant range on some shots is greater, probably 10 to 15 miles. That camera would not be ideal for low-light night shots, but there are commonly available cameras and lenses which could do that.

Source: https://youtu.be/ZANkrmRG9Wg

Why wouldn't my camera be ideal?

 

[FatPhil]

Here are some high-altitude plane videos using a Nikon P1000 camera and a regular video tripod. They are about seven miles high, but the slant range on some shots is greater, probably 10 to 15 miles. That camera would not be ideal for low-light night shots, but there are commonly available cameras and lenses which could do that.

Oooh, seems like there's a 125x optical zoom on that beast.

This is an interesting glitch:

That's not your grandma's rolling shutter artefact.

In UFO terms, it morphed its geometry in order to phase between dimensions.

 

[joema]

Why wouldn't my camera be ideal?

Nothing wrong with a D5600 per se; I used to have a D300 and liked it a lot. However if the government really wants to immediately identify the pesky New Jersey "drones", they might hypothetically equip lots of operators to get those images. It would be like when the Associated Press buys new cameras and lenses for all their photographers. They do a "market survey" at that present time, evaluate various factors, and buy (say) 500 cameras and 1,000 lenses.

If the goal is the difficult but manageable task of getting vastly improved nighttime telephoto still & video imagery of "drones", high ISO and low noise would be important.

Newer mirrorless cameras have high-resolution OLED viewfinders that can work better in night conditions than a DSLR's optical viewfinder.

They also might also want to network the real-time video feeds from the cameras to enable coordination from a central command post. Some newer cameras have UVC output which can be fed directly into a computer without an HDMI capture device. They would likely want 4k recording (maybe 10-bit 4:2:2), not 8-bit 4:2:0 1080p.

 

[Nicole Schnaß]

To your first video. He is not amateur astronomer he is Dr. for astrophotography.
I know him very well alot of years.

He is one of the best astrophotographer wordwide.

Here is his page:
https://voltmer.de/?fbclid=IwY2xjaw...gh5C0ol3yCeBtC_Dzg_aem_rtysiVjCgtc4cY11HAX4lA

https://www.instagram.com/sebastian...cphwwjzdXYXsZJ9hyA_aem_7tf8VVO4SWH8Yb8HdnbGlA

https://www.facebook.com/SebastianVoltmerPhotography

 

[joema]

To your first video. He is not amateur astronomer he is Dr. for astrophotography.
I know him very well alot of years.

Thanks for that info. I only meant "amateur" in the sense that he is not an institutionally employed professional astronomer. This in no way diminishes his contributions to freelance astrophotography, science communication, and astronomy-related film production. It is not unknown for "amateurs" to make major contributions in the field of astronomy. E.g, Thomas Bopp worked at a construction materials company, yet as a "amateur" astronomer, co-discovered comet Hale-Bopp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bopp.