New and something is bugging me
« on: February 20, 2019, 09:16:02 AM »
New to this but something is bugging me. If for example, you put a giant sign on the west shore of New Zealand and a powerful telescope on the east coast of Argentina, if the earth is flat, would you be able to see if? Can someone explain to me why you can't or no one's tried?

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Offline stack

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Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2019, 09:31:19 AM »
Check out he wiki. Perhaps a starter point: https://wiki.tfes.org/Viewing_Distance

Then poke around and ask questions if you don't find the answers you're looking for after searching the wiki and the forums.

manicminer

Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2019, 11:35:06 AM »
Justatheory… how much do you know about telescopes?

When people talk about powerful they mean in the context of magnification. In astronomy we are more interested in light gathering power which means larger aperture (more light can enter the telescope to form an image). Due to turbulent air currents (caused by ground heating from the Sun) telescopes tend to perform quite poorly during the day over land (or water in this case).

The effect of turbulence degrades the quality of the image you will get over relatively short distances of a few miles even. This seriously limits the resolving power of telescopes. According to Google Maps, the only immediately available source of information I have, the distance between NZ and Argentina is a little over 4,600 miles (I get a different figure each time I measure).  Over that distance, even if dead flat, it would have to be a really big  sign for you to be able to make anything out.

As a theory or mind experiment then yes it would work but in practice, no way that would work.  The Moon is a little over a quarter of a million miles away and you can see that with your naked eye because of its size. The smallest craters you can see with a good telescope and stable seeing conditions are a mile or so across.  So that gives you some guidance on how big your sign would have to be to see it through a telescope assuming you have direct line of sight.  Over 4,600 miles distance over land you wouldn't have that so experiment wouldn't work.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2019, 11:37:49 AM by manicminer »

totallackey

Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2019, 11:35:30 AM »
New to this but something is bugging me. If for example, you put a giant sign on the west shore of New Zealand and a powerful telescope on the east coast of Argentina, if the earth is flat, would you be able to see if? Can someone explain to me why you can't or no one's tried?
Regardless of form, the air is more dense at the surface of the earth and makes it impossible to view beyond (roughly) 350 km.

Offline ChrisTP

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Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2019, 12:45:47 PM »
New to this but something is bugging me. If for example, you put a giant sign on the west shore of New Zealand and a powerful telescope on the east coast of Argentina, if the earth is flat, would you be able to see if? Can someone explain to me why you can't or no one's tried?
Regardless of form, the air is more dense at the surface of the earth and makes it impossible to view beyond (roughly) 350 km.
Not that I disagree with you here but I'm interested in where you got that figure of 350km from (or how you came to that number), could you give a source so I can go educate myself further?
Tom is wrong most of the time. Hardly big news, don't you think?

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Offline AATW

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Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2019, 12:52:13 PM »
New to this but something is bugging me. If for example, you put a giant sign on the west shore of New Zealand and a powerful telescope on the east coast of Argentina, if the earth is flat, would you be able to see if? Can someone explain to me why you can't or no one's tried?
Regardless of form, the air is more dense at the surface of the earth and makes it impossible to view beyond (roughly) 350 km.
I thought the sun was thousands of miles away at sunset? You seem to be able to see that OK.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2019, 01:47:09 PM »
Regardless of form, the air is more dense at the surface of the earth [...]
I thought the sun was thousands of miles away at sunset? [...]
The Sun is also not on the surface of the Earth.
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
Follow the Flat Earth Society on Twitter and Facebook!

If we are not speculating then we must assume

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Offline AATW

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Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2019, 02:22:55 PM »
Regardless of form, the air is more dense at the surface of the earth [...]
I thought the sun was thousands of miles away at sunset? [...]
The Sun is also not on the surface of the Earth.
Fair point. But the light from it must be passing through quite a lot of the atmosphere near the surface of the earth.
I think you're an EA kinda guy, so the light is bending. But it must be doing so fairly gently so for quite a lot of the light's journey it must be going pretty much parallel to your eye at sunset.
I've no idea what path light takes in Tom's world of "perspective".
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

totallackey

Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #8 on: February 20, 2019, 04:41:42 PM »
New to this but something is bugging me. If for example, you put a giant sign on the west shore of New Zealand and a powerful telescope on the east coast of Argentina, if the earth is flat, would you be able to see if? Can someone explain to me why you can't or no one's tried?
Regardless of form, the air is more dense at the surface of the earth and makes it impossible to view beyond (roughly) 350 km.
I thought the sun was thousands of miles away at sunset? You seem to be able to see that OK.
Bright light may be a clue...

totallackey

Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #9 on: February 20, 2019, 04:44:41 PM »
New to this but something is bugging me. If for example, you put a giant sign on the west shore of New Zealand and a powerful telescope on the east coast of Argentina, if the earth is flat, would you be able to see if? Can someone explain to me why you can't or no one's tried?
Regardless of form, the air is more dense at the surface of the earth and makes it impossible to view beyond (roughly) 350 km.
Not that I disagree with you here but I'm interested in where you got that figure of 350km from (or how you came to that number), could you give a source so I can go educate myself further?
"Dust, water vapour and pollution in the air will rarely let you see more than 20 kilometres (12 miles), even on a clear day. Often, the curvature of the Earth gets in the way first – eg at sea level, the horizon is only 4.8 kilometres (2.9 miles) away. On the top of Mt Everest, you could theoretically see for 339 kilometres (211 miles), but in practice cloud gets in the way." - https://www.howitworksdaily.com/what-is-the-maximum-distance-the-human-eye-can-see-if-unobstructed/

Offline ChrisTP

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Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #10 on: February 20, 2019, 04:59:24 PM »
New to this but something is bugging me. If for example, you put a giant sign on the west shore of New Zealand and a powerful telescope on the east coast of Argentina, if the earth is flat, would you be able to see if? Can someone explain to me why you can't or no one's tried?
Regardless of form, the air is more dense at the surface of the earth and makes it impossible to view beyond (roughly) 350 km.
Not that I disagree with you here but I'm interested in where you got that figure of 350km from (or how you came to that number), could you give a source so I can go educate myself further?
"Dust, water vapour and pollution in the air will rarely let you see more than 20 kilometres (12 miles), even on a clear day. Often, the curvature of the Earth gets in the way first – eg at sea level, the horizon is only 4.8 kilometres (2.9 miles) away. On the top of Mt Everest, you could theoretically see for 339 kilometres (211 miles), but in practice cloud gets in the way." - https://www.howitworksdaily.com/what-is-the-maximum-distance-the-human-eye-can-see-if-unobstructed/
Thanks for a source. I was hoping for a bit more, the article is a paragraph with no links to sources, written by a guy who after my own searching found he's a trainee teacher with education as MA in zoology and an BA in computing. What he wrote sounds reasonable at least, but I was kind of hoping for the article to have citing and proper research papers of some kind. :( Oh well, never mind.
Tom is wrong most of the time. Hardly big news, don't you think?

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #11 on: February 20, 2019, 06:04:53 PM »
Fair point. But the light from it must be passing through quite a lot of the atmosphere near the surface of the earth.
I think you're an EA kinda guy, so the light is bending. But it must be doing so fairly gently so for quite a lot of the light's journey it must be going pretty much parallel to your eye at sunset.
Nonetheless, that's in no way comparable to the amount of atmolayer light would have to go through after reflecting from a very distant object by the Earth's surface.
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
Follow the Flat Earth Society on Twitter and Facebook!

If we are not speculating then we must assume

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Offline stack

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Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #12 on: February 20, 2019, 09:05:35 PM »
New to this but something is bugging me. If for example, you put a giant sign on the west shore of New Zealand and a powerful telescope on the east coast of Argentina, if the earth is flat, would you be able to see if? Can someone explain to me why you can't or no one's tried?
Regardless of form, the air is more dense at the surface of the earth and makes it impossible to view beyond (roughly) 350 km.
Not that I disagree with you here but I'm interested in where you got that figure of 350km from (or how you came to that number), could you give a source so I can go educate myself further?
"Dust, water vapour and pollution in the air will rarely let you see more than 20 kilometres (12 miles), even on a clear day. Often, the curvature of the Earth gets in the way first – eg at sea level, the horizon is only 4.8 kilometres (2.9 miles) away. On the top of Mt Everest, you could theoretically see for 339 kilometres (211 miles), but in practice cloud gets in the way." - https://www.howitworksdaily.com/what-is-the-maximum-distance-the-human-eye-can-see-if-unobstructed/

Supposed current world record for distance photography - 443 km



https://beyondhorizons.eu/2016/08/03/pic-de-finestrelles-pic-gaspard-ecrins-443-km/


totallackey

Re: New and something is bugging me
« Reply #13 on: February 21, 2019, 12:17:09 PM »
New to this but something is bugging me. If for example, you put a giant sign on the west shore of New Zealand and a powerful telescope on the east coast of Argentina, if the earth is flat, would you be able to see if? Can someone explain to me why you can't or no one's tried?
Regardless of form, the air is more dense at the surface of the earth and makes it impossible to view beyond (roughly) 350 km.
Not that I disagree with you here but I'm interested in where you got that figure of 350km from (or how you came to that number), could you give a source so I can go educate myself further?
"Dust, water vapour and pollution in the air will rarely let you see more than 20 kilometres (12 miles), even on a clear day. Often, the curvature of the Earth gets in the way first – eg at sea level, the horizon is only 4.8 kilometres (2.9 miles) away. On the top of Mt Everest, you could theoretically see for 339 kilometres (211 miles), but in practice cloud gets in the way." - https://www.howitworksdaily.com/what-is-the-maximum-distance-the-human-eye-can-see-if-unobstructed/
Thanks for a source. I was hoping for a bit more, the article is a paragraph with no links to sources, written by a guy who after my own searching found he's a trainee teacher with education as MA in zoology and an BA in computing. What he wrote sounds reasonable at least, but I was kind of hoping for the article to have citing and proper research papers of some kind. :( Oh well, never mind.
Here is another source:
Even RET apologists acknowledge: "On the top of Mt Everest, you could theoretically see for 339 kilometres (211 miles), but in practice cloud gets in the way."
Why can you only see 211 miles on a clear day from top Mt Everest?
Because of  the Scattering of Light. in the atmosphere.
The 339 kilometres that totallackey gives is quite correct and is an upper limit for perfectly clear air at sea-level.
The visibility distance near sea-level is usually much less due to fine particles in the air though it can be more at higher altitudes as in:
          Beyond Horizons, Pic de Finestrelles – Pic Gaspard (Ecrins) | 443 km. AUGUST 3, 2016 ~ MARK BRET.