Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

WTF? When attempting to use the telescope I borrowed from my brother as a telescope instead of as a long camera lens, the clearest, brightest view I get is when I remove the telescope eyepiece and hold up a 50mm camera lens to use as an eyepiece. This is ... counterintuitive, at my present level of understnding of telescopes.

Trying to keep both eyes open while one has such a vastly different magnification factor than the other (as when looking through a 700mm lens) is mildly headache-inducing. Trying to do so when one eye sees upside down and magnified while the other sees normally ... Ow. It feels like somebody jabbed a stilletto into my eye socket. (Was my brain trying to tell that eye to move in a way it couldn't do -- rotate in its socket -- or is the pain entirely neurological?)

I can't shoot helicopters today. There were two (both State Police, I think) parked downtown, but when the image in the viewfinder kept rippling from the air currents between here and downtown, I gave up any hope of getting sharp enough focus to read the tail numbers. (So now I'm trying to get cell-phone video of the heat ripples. Just to find out whether I can do so or not.)

Also: is it just me, or is it easier to shoot fireworks on a film camera than on digital?