[geckothegeek]

I'd like to see your evidence that flat Earth theories were actively and maliciously suppressed.

The fact that there is no evidence...IS THE EVIDENCE!!!  Wake up, sheeple!

I'd like to  see your evidence of a flat earth.

In reference to rabinov's post regarding Australia.
While it's no record, we have traveled by car to 46 of the 50 states in the USA. We have found all the road maps to be accurate.

BTW. Question for Tom Bishop.
The horizon.
When was the last time you were at sea or on a shore looking out to sea ?
What did you see ?

[Woody]

BTW. Question for Tom Bishop.
The horizon.
When was the last time you were at sea or on a shore looking out to sea ?
What did you see ?

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?action=post;quote=104778;topic=5366.40;last_msg=104778

Here is where he states he was with the telescope only 20" above the water:


Taking into account that the most important distances for this type of experiment were wrong I am not sure you could trust any conclusions from any observations he has made. 10 mile error in the distance from the observer to the beach and likely over a 2 foot error in the distance the scope was above the water.

His math was also a little off.  He calculated a 600 foot drop, but using the distances he provided it should have been around 660 feet at the target.  Using distances closer to reality it should have been around 280 feet.  This does not take into account  refraction, which judging by his description of the weather would have been a factor.

His work is sloppy at best or intentionally misleading at worst.

[Woody]

Forgot to add he saw an amazing amount of details 23 miles away.

I am going to be very generous and say that the distance of the shoreline past the ships is 20 miles way.  It is actually closer to 3 miles.



That is using a 27-60x  85mm spotting scope.  Costing around $2k.


That picture of the couple in the boat was taken from less than a mile away.  The scope used was a Swarovski ATS 80 HD 20-60x80mm. Another $2k scope.

Then I have experience in the military using some really good optics since I was in long range surveillance. Unfortunately the military was unable to supply us with the same optics Mr. Bishop has access to. I will give him the benefit of the doubt since our typical need was observing targets 1-5 km away.

What Tom saw at 23 miles away is simply amazing:

The entire beach is visible down to the water splashing upon the shore. Upon looking into the telescope I can see children running in and out of the water, splashing and playing. I can see people sun bathing at the shore and teenagers merrily throwing Frisbees to one another. I can see runners jogging along the water's edge with their dogs. From my vantage point the entire beach is visible.

I wonder what scope Tom has that is capable of resolving a 10-12 inch diameter frisbee at 23 miles? He must have spent a rather large sum on it.

[Tom Bishop]

Spotting scope vs telescope.

[TotesNotReptilian]

Spotting scope vs telescope.

A spotting scope is a type of telescope. But please... what kind of telescope did you use?

[Nostra]

Just playing the devil's advocate...

Actually, these kind of details could be reachable with a relatively small amateur telescope. The resolution power of a optic device is given as R=1.22*lambda/D were lambda is the wavelength of the observed light and D is the diameter of the optic device.
Taking a diameter of 0.0025m (which is about the size of the human pupil), and a wavelenght of 550nm (which is the middle of the visible ligth), you find a maximum resolution of about 55", which is close to the 1' often used here and there.
A 25cm frisbee at 37km has a angular diameter of about 1.5"
The theorical maximal resolution power of a D=0.1m telescope is about 1.4".
Taking into account a very good manufactured material and optics (miror and lens) plus very good atmospheric condition. It could theorically be possible to access this kind of details with a small amateur telescope.

However (stop playing the devil's advocate), being the proud owner of such a telescope I would like to mention some points :
- Very good atmospheric condition are extremelly rare, particularly when doing "horizontal" observation. This is why any astronomer will prefer to observe object not to close to the horizon, because of the atmospheric turbulence. This leads to a real bad degradation of the image quality
- Even if this level of details are indeed reachable with some small diameter (under very unlikely atmospheric conditions and with perfect optic (I'm coming back to that later)), we are talking about details the same size that the power of resolution, this means that the details Tom are describing are just the smallest point possible in the fiel of view of is observation (or he is using a very powerful magnification optic, and all he can see is a big blur). And I will not talk here about the thermal stability of the mirror and the otpical abberation here...
- This kind of telescope, even for a small amateur one, are quite massive, not so easy to move, balance and install. I would be very interrested in viewing some pictures of how you are doing this experiment Tom. Particularly, to realize observation as close as 50cm to the sea level, it means that the feet of the telescope are in the ocean and Tom too. I would personnally never do that, and I am convince that no one would do that with his telescope particularly when you are using ultra-good quality optics that are really, really, really (I mean really!) expensive and absolutely not (salt!)-water proof... The other solution is to reduce the height of the telescope at its minimum, but mine cannot go as low as 50cm to the ground, and it would be very impratical to observe like that... (particularly when seeing what the location looks like!)
- Maybe Tom is using a 300 mm telescope, which is much more realistic to reach this kind of detail, but now the telescope itself becomes very expensive, and it is probably not the better idea anyone could have to put it into the ocean, not speaking of the above point that would become even more problematic for such a large telescope...
- Oh, and I almost forgot, the Earth is round, so you cannot see any detail on a beach 37 km away when 50cm above sea level (well, only under unlikely atmospheric conditions, maybe, but this is non consistent with Tom saying that he could do that all day long!)

[Woody]

Spotting scope vs telescope.

The pictures above were taken with really damn good spotting scopes.  That is why they cost $2k.

It is considered a spotting scope is used for terrestrial observations while a telescope is used celestial observations.  The reason there is a distinction is because how they are made and for the maximum magnification generally used. You of course can use either for both applications.

For a spotting scope the examples above are reaching the maximum specs that should be used for a spotter scope.  The reason being if you start going beyond that the atmospheric disturbances hinder your view. It would look similar to the heat waves you can see rise from a road on a hot day.  Except with a scope being capable of more resolution than the human eye you will be able to see this in most situations.  There is a reason scopes used for terrestrial observations generally do not exceed 60x magnification.  In most atmospheric conditions air turbulence will degrade the performance and what could be clearly seen over that.

So if your telescope was capable of 60x the apparent size of the frisbee looking through the scope would be .15mm. Which is about 1/2 a pixel for a standard low resolution photo used for websites or 3/20th of the size of the midges on the hat:




So if you have a scope with 125x magnification we get close in apparent size of a pixel in a standard low res photo and the size of a midge. Basically the frisbee would appear to be 1mm in size.  If viewed from the top or bottom and not the side.

I also did not take into account aperture which would greatly effect how well and what you can see in order to simplify this.

Math is not my strong suit and I did the calculations quickly.  Anyone feel free to correct any mistake I may have made.

Edit:
Forgot to add telling us the specs of the scope used would help a lot in clearing things up.

Personally I think if you really did see what you claimed you made a mistake and you were not looking at the beach at Light House Park 23 miles away, but somewhere between Fort Ord Dunes and Monterey Beach Parks about 4 miles away.  It would also explain how you were able to place the telescope only 20" above the water. Since on that side of Lover's Point there is a small beach. Unlike the side that would give you a view of the Light House Park which has a steep rocky drop off of at least 4 feet.

[Nostra]

Personally I think if you really did see what you claimed you made a mistake and you were not looking at the beach at Light House Park 23 miles away, but somewhere between Fort Ord Dunes and Monterey Beach Parks about 4 miles away.  It would also explain how you were able to place the telescope only 20" above the water. Since on that side of Lover's Point there is a small beach. Unlike the side that would give you a view of the Light House Park which has a steep rocky drop off of at least 4 feet.

This is also my personnal opinion

[TotesNotReptilian]

* chirp *

Still waiting for that telescope that you used Tom...

[Woody]

* chirp *

Still waiting for that telescope that you used Tom...

I think he is going to abandon this thread and pretend it did not happen.

I could be wrong and he will surprise us, but in my experience he will not respond.

[geckothegeek]

* chirp *

Still waiting for that telescope that you used Tom...

I think he is going to abandon this thread and pretend it did not happen.

I could be wrong and he will surprise us, but in my experience he will not respond.

That's strange. I had the same experience with intikam on another thread.

[Tom Bishop]

Please consult the original thread on that topic, it was discussed there.

[TotesNotReptilian]

Please consult the original thread on that topic, it was discussed there.

All I can find is this thread from February: "Bishop Experiment Debate". Again, someone there (model29) asks for your telescope specs and they are ignored.

You make a vague reference to earlier threads where the experiment was discussed but I can not find them. I tried looking on the other website, but their search function is awful. Google turned up nothing as well.

So, I repeat... what telescope did you use?

[Rama Set]

Here is a link to Tom's original report of the infamous "Bishop Experiment".

https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=16172.msg268864#msg268864

No mention of a telescope type other than it need be "good". Tom's obsession with precision was evident even as a young boy.

[TotesNotReptilian]

Here is a link to Tom's original report of the infamous "Bishop Experiment".

https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=16172.msg268864#msg268864

No mention of a telescope type other than it need be "good". Tom's obsession with precision was evident even as a young boy.

Well, that post was quite illuminating! Particularly, this part:

From my vantage point the entire beach is visible. Even with the unaided naked eye one can see the beaches along the opposite coast.

Fun fact: the beach seen in the picture that he linked is NOT in Santa Cruz. That is a picture of Fort Ord Dunes State Park. The beach towards the right of the image is about 4 miles away. That picture was taken from the SOUTH side of Lover's Point. (Lovers Point Beach).

Another picture taken from the south side.
A picture taken from the north side, for comparison.

Isn't Google street view fun?

Tom Bishop claimed to take the picture from Lovers Point BEACH from the get go, so this isn't surprising. Lovers Point Beach is on the south side of Lovers Point, but doesn't have a view of Santa Cruz at all. I always assumed he just climbed over the rocks and found a sandy patch on the north side, even though that isn't technically Lovers Point Beach. The image that he linked to rules that out though. So, either he was lying about the entire thing, or he didn't know what direction he was facing.

Tom Bishop: care to comment?

[markjo]

Perhaps Tom was merely mistaken. 

[TotesNotReptilian]

Ok, this is getting awkward, so I am going to help Tom out here a bit. Tom, you have 3 options:

1. Defend your position. (If you still think your experiment was done correctly, and I am totally off my rocker)
2. Ignore it and pretend nothing is wrong. (If you want to lose what little credibility you have left)
3. Admit the mistake and do what you can to fix it. This includes notifying whoever has edit access to the wiki to get it taken down. Optionally, redo the experiment correctly and report the results, whatever they may be. (I recommend this option if you want to retain some credibility)

[Woody]

Ok, this is getting awkward, so I am going to help Tom out here a bit. Tom, you have 3 options:

1. Defend your position. (If you still think your experiment was done correctly, and I am totally off my rocker)
2. Ignore it and pretend nothing is wrong. (If you want to lose what little credibility you have left)
3. Admit the mistake and do what you can to fix it. This includes notifying whoever has edit access to the wiki to get it taken down. Optionally, redo the experiment correctly and report the results, whatever they may be. (I recommend this option if you want to retain some credibility)

I remember seeing somewhere where Tom asked for access and the reply was they would give it to him.

He stated in my thread he would not and could not change the distances.

He said he supplied and addendum previously so it could be linked or noted.

On the other site John Davis said it was not his experiment so he would not make any corrections or remove it.  He did not address anything about the wrong distances.

Someone else at that site who had access to the wiki said the experiment and conclusion were valid even with the distances being wrong.

I did not bring up anything about what Tom claimed to be able to see so clearly.

Personally I have just decided to continually bring it up when I see new FE's post and whenever FE's claim scientist, universities and others of that ilk are liars and deceitful.  Particularly when John or Tom post.

It is funny they accuse NASA and other organizations of being deceitful and in their wiki prominently displayed as experimental evidence is the Bishop Experiment. 

Whenever I have doubts about the shape of the earth I simply walk outside my home, down to the beach, and perform this simple test. The same result comes up over and over throughout the year under a plethora of different atmospheric conditions.  —Tom Bishop

The other site makes the claim the experiment is conclusive evidence.

[Southernhemispere]

[quote author=Nostra link=topic=5366.msg104831#msg104831 date=147556173
- Very good atmospheric condition are extremelly rare, particularly when doing "horizontal" observation. This is why any astronomer will prefer to observe object not to close to the horizon, because of the atmospheric turbulence. This leads to a real bad degradation of the image quality

[/quote]

Which is why they build the space observatories in remote spots away from air and light pollution, often on top of mountains. But then again, every single image of space taken, all the millions of them, have also been produced by NASA and other agents of evil to support the globe theory!
If Tom has such a fine telescopic lens, can he take some non-NASA pictures of the sky for us please!

[Woody]

[quote author=Nostra link=topic=5366.msg104831#msg104831 date=147556173
- Very good atmospheric condition are extremelly rare, particularly when doing "horizontal" observation. This is why any astronomer will prefer to observe object not to close to the horizon, because of the atmospheric turbulence. This leads to a real bad degradation of the image quality

Which is why they build the space observatories in remote spots away from air and light pollution, often on top of mountains. But then again, every single image of space taken, all the millions of them, have also been produced by NASA and other agents of evil to support the globe theory!
If Tom has such a fine telescopic lens, can he take some non-NASA pictures of the sky for us please!
[/quote]

So many people would be interested in how Tom achieved what he did.  He should release his method and telescope specs. Both amateurs and professionals would be very interested in learning how to achieve the results he did.

It would be much cheaper than having to do something like build an observatory in a remote location or put a telescope in orbit.