41

Flat Earth Theory / Spotlight Sun

« on: May 03, 2018, 04:56:45 AM »

The sun first appears as the top arc of a circle at sunrise:


The sun last appears as the top arc of a circle at sunset:


But according to theTFES wiki, a "spotlight effect" limits what part of the earth the sun illuminates. Yet, the sun is a sphere:

The sun is a sphere. "Spotlight" refers to the spot-of-light the sun's light casts upon the earth, and is often misinterpreted to mean that the sun is non-spherical or only shines light in one direction.

I think such misinterpretation is understandable, since how can a light source be spherical, radiating light in all directions, yet also be a spotlight? Lights in parabolic mirrors, or recessed in a reflector, or shaded in order to produce a spot, don't appear as spherical (or circular) when off axis from their spot. And yet the sun retains it's upper arc from its first moment of appearance to the very last moment of disappearance.

Not inviting debate (on this forum, anyway). Just trying to understand how it might be possible.

42

Flat Earth Theory / Observation of Sun Path During Sunset

« on: May 02, 2018, 08:37:42 PM »

Here is an accelerated video of a sunset in San Diego, CA from a few weeks ago:


Here's a composite image from that video of the sun's position at the start of the video and it's position at toward the end:


No matter the time of year, I observe the sun's azimuth drift northward as it sinks toward the western horizon. (Moving from upper left to lower right.)

Many of the videos of sunsets I find show the sun following similar paths, exhibiting northerly drift as they set westerly:


And here's a multiple exposure showing the same phenomenon: upper left to lower right  [edit to correct for my dyslexia]


I understand why this is in a globe earth, heliocentric model. Does it make sense in a flat earth model?

For San Diego it does. And Sweden.


I marked Sweden too after seeing these sunsets:



In fact, would it be true for any vantage point on flat earth that the clockwise spiral of the sun would present a left to right drift of some amount during sunset?

But that doesn't happen in reaches outside of (south of) the sun's circular path.

Here's a sunset as seen from the southern "hemisphere"
 


It's setting upper right to lower left. That doesn't match with what the flat earth model would predict:



What might be a plausible explanation for this?

43

Flat Earth Theory / Lateral "Curvature"

« on: April 29, 2018, 04:12:04 PM »

I've seen this touched on before, but many globe earth proponents and globe earth skeptics alike expect to be able to see curvature along the lateral horizon. But that's a mistake. On a sphere, the surface curves AWAY in all directions from a vantage point. Attempting to prove earth's curvature by finding curve along the horizon is as incorrect as trying to disprove the "rotundity" of earth by demonstrating that there is no curve along the horizon.

Samuel Rowbotham makes the same mistake in his Experiment 7 of "Earth Not a Globe" http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za12.htm

44

Flat Earth Theory / The Horizon is Always at Eye Level

« on: April 25, 2018, 09:03:48 PM »

"A fact of basic perspective is that the line of the horizon is always at eye level with the observer."
https://wiki.tfes.org/Horizon_always_at_Eye_Level

If this "fact of basic perspective" is true, I believe it can only be true for perspective at eye-level over a plane (flat) surface).

For perspectives from an eye-level height of a plane tangent to a curved surface, the horizon will not always be at eye-level.

This would make observations of horizon relative to eye-level a potentially good indicator of whether or not one is viewing that horizon over a flat or a curved surface.

Is there anything wrong with that line of reasoning?

45

Flat Earth Theory / Observation of Sun Size During the Day

« on: April 23, 2018, 08:15:25 PM »

I thought it would be more appropriate to find an existing topic thread and inject some information into this well-worn topic, but when I tried I received a caution that due to the age and dormancy of the old topic, I might be advised to start a new one. But seeing as this is my first post on this board, I hope I'm not breaking any rules by starting a new topic is a post count of 0.  (I've been posting recently as "Yib" on another flat earth community's forum.)

I've been intrigued by what I would expect the sun to look like as it traversed the sky if the current flat earth visualization was a good model. Like most skeptics of the flat earth model, I feel that I should be able to see a marked difference in the sun's apparent size (width/diameter) from when it is at the highest point of elevation compared to when it is receded into the distance, low in elevation.

There's a video (who's source I can't identify) on YouTube showing a sunset, presumably in the Middle East, that DOES give the appearance I would expect of a diminishing sun as it recedes toward a horizon. But I've never personally seen a sunset like that. By my unmeasured eye, I feel like I see a sun sphere that's basically the same at low altitude as it is at high altitude, and it doesn't diminish to a vanishing point but becomes an obscured circle/sphere, as if over an edge.

So, "is that an illusion?" I ask myself. I've read the wiki(s) that propose a magnification explanation for why the sun doesn't diminish in apparent size as it sets towards the "conversion zone" of the horizon. Yet there are also videos by defenders of the current flat earth model attempting to verify that the sun DOES diminish in size as it "sets" into a vanishing plane/convergence zone.  So, does it or doesn't it?

Yesterday (Sunday, April 22nd 2018) I took some photographs of the sun and tried to be as careful as possible to avoid introducing aspects that would change the angular perspective of the sun. I included a solar filter and exposure settings to reduce the glare of the sun so that I could see its boundary. Using the same focal length for all photographs throughout the day, same resolution, same field of view, and without altering the photographs, it didn't matter whether the sun was at its closest point to my location (San Diego at 69° elevation due south) or 10 minutes to scheduled sunset (1½° elevation to the west). My measurements of the sun's pixel size from every test point was 605px +/- 5 pixels, the variance being due to precision error in where to choose the edge from which to measure.

The consistent size can't be akin to glare or lost focus since I accounted for that. The atmosphere, itself, acts as a filter as the sun's elevation drops and the intensity of the light is diminished. But if that's where magnification due to water vapor begins to take effect, it didn't seem to have a magnifying effect, unless it is perfectly synchronized to maintain a constant angular diameter of the sun until refractive elements take hold at around 1-2°. Only then, at less than 2°, did the circle of the sun start to become distorted, as it got "squashed" and its edge boundaries more irregular. However, it's horizontal width didn't change.

Even with some magnification, I would only expect it to reduce the rate of change, maybe, so that the evening sun might be larger than expected, but nevertheless smaller than the sun at solar noon. But that didn't happen.

I posted this on another forum, but didn't receive any feedback other than from those inclined to already agree with me. I'd appreciate a critical, contrary review. I can either re-post my data and observations, or provide a link to where they are posted.