Loyal, post: 451052, member: 228 wrote: I can't speak to the S7 question, I have no idea what it's "real world" capabilities are.
My longest EDMI "shot" was something just over 206,000 ft. (a Utah Peak to a Wyoming Peak) back in ~1983 with Cubic Electro Tapes.
My longest LASER "shot" was probably somewhere between 55,000 & 60,000 ft. out in Nevada somewhere using an AGA Model 78 in the late 80s or early 90s.
20-30 thousand foot shots were so routine back in those days, that I never though much about it.
Loyal
And winding up sets of angles from a backsight 15,000' to a foresight 20,000'.
And not doing this at night, or flashing lights, or mirrors. It takes someone who has some skill with the instrument and a good sense of direction, but you don't really need any extraordinary measures.
We used to do this all day long, probably the most time was spent beating a bronco across the hills and plains to get to the next point.
Sometimes the sight would look like a flame, those needed to wait for the sun to begin to set or cloud cover.
standing on the corner, post: 450636, member: 8561 wrote: I need to make a 14,000' shot with an S7. I plan on using standard -30 mm prisms. Any tips or tricks that I might need to know? Should I plan on holding black cardboard behind the sight to be able to see anything?
TIA
I shot 10,000' with a VX once. I had to stay at the instrument because the radio wouldn't connect that far. 10k didn't seem to be a problem for it at all. 14K to triples wouldn't be an issue I wouldn't think.
Triple prisms give sqrt (sqrt (3))=1.32 times the distance based only on beam spreading. Atmospheric attenuation and distortions reduce the range to less than that.
I shot 14000 feet along the coast from tri station setup to tri station backsight once, the foresight was about a half mile across the cove. The backsight tripod had an orange vest over it and triples. I just aimed above the blurry orange dot. It was a TCA1102+, ATR didn't work at that range.
My guys are out there today. I asked them to pull back on the length of our cross tie. Still should be over 10,000'.
I'll keep you guys updated
Some of us old guys have probably worked off shore and taken lots of long shots both on shore and off. We always did it at dusk, dawn or at night. You could probably tape one of those atomic beam flash lights on top of a triple prism and set the light on strobe an see it at night pretty easy.
Shooting the moon is not just a move in Hearts...
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Your comment made me think about Bart Crattie's discussion about Bilby towers at the spring TAPS conference. He said the longest observation he was aware of to have been taken from one was (I think) 120 miles. Now that's a long sight line!