21

Flat Earth Community / Re: Merely mistaken

« on: October 08, 2016, 05:52:13 AM »

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.

22

Flat Earth Community / Re: Merely mistaken

« on: October 05, 2016, 04:11:43 AM »

* 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.

23

Flat Earth Community / Re: Merely mistaken

« on: October 04, 2016, 06:47:11 AM »

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.

24

Flat Earth Community / Re: Merely mistaken

« on: October 04, 2016, 01:59:49 AM »

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.

25

Flat Earth Community / Re: Merely mistaken

« on: October 04, 2016, 12:25:17 AM »

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.

26

Flat Earth Community / Re: Satellites.... Troposcatter Technology?

« on: October 02, 2016, 12:20:14 AM »

Why are you guys so lazy? If you think it's a good experiment, feel free to conduct it. I was not the one who suggested this experiment and thought it would prove something. I happen to think that it's not a good experiment. It is not my responsibility to conduct your research and do your experiments for you.

Here you go.

https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=67971.msg1827639#msg1827639

I am a bit lazy and figured some RE would eventually do something with the ISS or satellites to determine their altitudes/locations. My patience paid off in this case for the ISS.

I tackled this proposal once on the other forum.  I took a look at some projected ISS transits over the United States, looking for one for which I could pick two observers with simultaneous and directly opposite observing locations.  I found one on March 6, 2016 that fit the bill: it had a maximum apparent elevation at 5:00:40am Spokane WA time, and 5:59:39am El Paso TX time. 

Maximum elevation only 61 seconds apart, that's the best I could do for a simultaneous observation, and those observers in those two locations would have been looking pretty much directly at each other.  This is important, because it means the angles of elevation from each location can be used to calculate the elevation above ground of the object being observed. 

Spokane and El Paso are 1237 miles apart, according to Google Maps "Distance Measure" tool.  (I understand that an FE supporter might challenge that distance as being tainted by RE math, and I'll come back to that.)  According to the ISS Astroviewer page (links at the bottom) an observer in Spokane will see the ISS rise to a maximum elevation of 14° above the horizon to the South East, while the El Paso observer will see it at 21° to the North West.  Taking for the moment a flat-earth model, we thus have an obtuse triangle with a side and two angles known, we can calculate the rest. 

The angle formed at the vertex occupied by the object in the sky is 145°.  The Law Of Sines allows us to calculate the line-of-sight distances to the object to each observer.  The Spokane leg of the triangle is 772.9 miles, and the El Paso leg is 521.7 miles.  From there, we can calculate the height above ground of the object using the Law of Sine again, for each observer's angle.  The result is 186.97 miles high.  This is far, far higher than any known aircraft has ever flown, or ever could fly.

Possible objections:
1) Maybe the elevations are wrong?  I think we can take the projected elevation angles as accurate (instead of going out and observing it ourselves) because if they were not it would be very easy to expose the error, and should have been done by now.  Amateur astronomers use these online resources without reporting massive errors, after all.
2) Maybe the distance from Spokane to El Paso is wrong?  Perhaps it is, I'll grant you that.  Let's say we call it 1 'ground unit' of unknown distance and do the math that way.  We end up with the object being at an elevation of 0.15 ground units.  Or put another way, Spokane and El Paso are 6.5 times as far apart as the object's elevation.  Commercial aircraft typically operate with a ceiling of 42,000 feet, or 8 miles.  The aircraft with the highest known operating ceiling ever, the American SR-71 spy plane, could fly as high as 85,000 feet, or 16 miles.  Even if my ground unit measurement is less than 1237 miles, it is not off by enough to bring those cities close enough (104 miles) for an SR-71 to appear at 14° from one and 21° from the other.
3) One minute difference in observation time is huge when the object is visible for only four minutes.  Seems like it is, yes.  However, the object sweeps across the sky in a fairly flat curve, especially as viewed from Spokane.  It rises from 10° to 14° and falls back to 10° during the transit.  Doing the math again with Spokane's lowest elevation still yields an elevation of 149.46 miles, far too high to be any airplane we know about.

Spokane: http://iss.astroviewer.net/observation.php?lon=-117.4260466&lat=47.6587802&name=Spokane
El Paso: http://iss.astroviewer.net/observation.php?lon=-106.4850217&lat=31.7618778&name=El%20Paso

27

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Angles, Perspective, and the Setting Sun.

« on: September 30, 2016, 01:49:48 AM »

Tom, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you essentially saying that the mathematical foundations of visual perspective that are used in highly detailed and accurate systems, like flight simulators, are unproven?

His argument is at some certain unspecified distance and reason the math fails to work.  From what I can gather from his post the math fails at around 12 miles where most sailors on lookout duty would see the horizon and again around 3,000 miles the altitude of the Sun.

28

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Angles, Perspective, and the Setting Sun.

« on: September 29, 2016, 04:41:42 PM »

If we take a line and define a segment then we are no longer assuming infinity.

When we select how accurate a calculation needs to be using something like Pi or 1/3 we are no longer using an infinite number.

The math has been constantly proven to work in real world applications.

29

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Angles, Perspective, and the Setting Sun.

« on: September 29, 2016, 09:19:30 AM »

TL;DR:

It is easy to calculate the distance of an object based on its height and angle with the horizon, using an orthographic diagram or this equation:

distance = height / tan(angle)

You can deny that the math is wrong, or that orthographic diagrams are invalid all you want. However, the math works for any testable distance. Test it.

What continually perplexes me is that an explanation and one that can be tested relatively easily like yours will not be accepted or tested by any true FE believer. 

Similar how Tom will not do any experiments that will challenge his belief. He will stick to the safe claims of seeing stuff he should not see or shooting a laser at a target without providing any data or other information.

30

Flat Earth Community / Re: Satellites.... Troposcatter Technology?

« on: September 27, 2016, 05:09:17 AM »

It just really amazes me that no what experiment someone suggest that Tom will shoot it down.  It seems to me it is either too expensive, too hard, or will not offer 100% proof of the shape of the Earth.

He will not observe the ISS of a period of time, will not try to figure out where satellite dishes are pointed, will not take a long exposure photo of a part of the night sky where geostationary satellites are said to be located.  Cost nothing but time except for the photograph since a camera will be needed.  A camera costing under $200 should be good enough.

For someone claiming to be trying to discover the truth about the world around us he certainly seems very reluctant to do anything beyond fudging some numbers on a experiment and posting a video of where it is really hard to tell what is going on.  Just a vid of people shooting a laser at a target over the water. Then offers no data, results or conclusions.

I guess one way to protect a belief is not to make any serious attempt of finding out if you are right.
I tried giving him something that cost nothing to do and would offer evidence if satellites exist. 

31

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Angles, Perspective, and the Setting Sun.

« on: September 25, 2016, 07:52:00 AM »

If I am following this right Tom is saying the math is wrong because if what ever you are viewing like railroad and do not have enough resolution tracks can appear to touch in the distance.

I do not know what to say if this is his reasoning.

Tom what I was saying about celestial navigation is the entire method is based on angles.  The sextant is used to measure the apparent angle of a star above the horizon. Then everything that follows is using math to predict where on Earth at that time that star will be viewed at that angle. 

My reasoning is if you are claiming the math fails after a certain distance.  Like predicting what angle the Sun should be above the horizon.  On a flat earth with a Sun 3k miles high the math says it should never appear to touch the horizon, let alone appear to go below it.

32

Flat Earth Community / Re: Satellites.... Troposcatter Technology?

« on: September 24, 2016, 11:00:06 PM »

If you were really interested in the shape of the earth measuring dish angles and the path of the sun would be something to easily carry out.  A reluctance to do this must show you are not serious in your belief.

Stop being lazy and follow through with the experiment you proposed. I'm not going to contribute to this discussion for you.

I believe the Earth is round and satellites exist. 

If you do not see the value of figuring out if all those dishes spread across a continent are pointing at the same thing I can only think to tell you this:

1.  You will be able to tell if they are pointing at the same thing

2. You can get an estimate of the altitude of the signal source.

3. If will be evidence for or against the existence of satellites.

4. It will help you determine the feasibility of using troposcatter.  If it is being used it will need to be transmitting signals at multiple locations in a pattern that would emulate what is expected for a geosynchronous satellite. That is if those dishes are all pointing towards the same thing.

I still wonder why no FE does this. 

You can also take advantage of the doppler effect in your quest for the truth.  You will be able to determine the trajectory of the thing sending the signal.

You can get some open source programs for a lot of GPS devices.  You will be able to review the calculations being used and install it on your device to see if it works properly.  Since the calculations involve knowing the satellites' locations. If the wrong position is transmitted the calculations will give you the wrong fix.

You can observe the ISS over a period of time.  You can estimate it's speed and altitude using a couple of different methods.  See if it matches with what Kepler's laws say it should be.

You dismissed these ideas for observations before because you claimed none would determine the shape of the Earth.  The topic now is about the existence of satellites.  The above are some other things can be done to gather evidence about their existence and where they are.

You can make claims all you want, until you can offer evidence all you have is just saying something is true.

I also do not have to do the experiments, because I have observed the ISS through binoculars and telescope.  I have an understanding of orbital mechanics and my observations match what I know about the subject.

Others have tracked satellites using the Doppler effect to determine their orbits.  I have seen the results and it done while I lived in Florida.  I have no reason to question the results or the conclusions.

Then there is the multitude of pictures taken by satellites and used daily by professionals in their careers across the globe.

The existence of these things orbiting the Earth is a huge hole in the FE hypothesis.  It should really be towards the top of the list of things FE's need to look into.

Are they really up there?

If so, how high? What causes the different orbits? 

If not, what are those stationary lights in the night sky that starting appearing around the 1970's?

What is causing the Irdium flares and why are they so predictable? How about the predictability of the other lights moving through the night sky?

33

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Angles, Perspective, and the Setting Sun.

« on: September 24, 2016, 10:18:03 PM »

How about answer how celestial navigation can be used to get a fix?

The method used predicts what angle certain stars should appear to an observer at a location at a certain time. 

This is  real world application that was and is(much rarely now) with accurate and reliable results.  This suggest that the math you say fails at those distances does work at them.

If celestial navigation works what changes when predicting what angle the Sun should appear to a person?

I would prefer to keep these threads on topic.

How is it off topic?

I am asking about predicting the angle stars appear to the observer.  This thread is talking about predicting the angle of the nearest star to us, the Sun.

Your claim the math does not work or is unreliable.  Celestial navigation being used to get a fix using math suggest you are wrong about distance causing the math to fail.

Your last post on the subject of celestial navigation was only partially correct. You can get a line of position without using math.  To get a fix math is involved.  I really suggest you look into how to navigate and finding your position using the stars.  It will give you an insight on the distances of where math still works. Since long before GPS, LORAN and computers people figured out using the math you claim is wrong to determine their position anywhere on Earth as long as they could see the stars and horizon. (When someone figured out they could use an artificial horizon they only needed to see the stars)
 

34

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Angles, Perspective, and the Setting Sun.

« on: September 24, 2016, 06:54:00 PM »

How about answer how celestial navigation can be used to get a fix?

The method used predicts what angle certain stars should appear to an observer at a location at a certain time. 

This is  real world application that was and is(much rarely now) with accurate and reliable results.  This suggest that the math you say fails at those distances does work at them.

If celestial navigation works what changes when predicting what angle the Sun should appear to a person?

35

Flat Earth Community / Re: Satellites.... Troposcatter Technology?

« on: September 24, 2016, 06:07:44 PM »

If you or the other guy think it will provide support for your round world model, have at it. We can look at the numbers and see if it makes sense. I'm not your errand boy to prove your model for you.

You not only need to look at what proves you right, but what proves you wrong.  If you do not you can never advance your model or refine it. 

The reason you or another FE should do it is it will allow you to refine a FE model.  Something like the upper limit man and machine can go.

Myself and other RE's accept the world is round.  We believe that Kepler's and Newton's Laws are right so have no need or desire to do this.  I actually thought about doing it and may some day. I also think about how the results will be just dismissed by FE's. 

If I do do it it will not be for someone like you, but a young person who may have wondered by here, has little to no understanding of the subject matters. It will be in the hope that they to do not end up going down the same path as anyone truly believing the Earth is flat.

36

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Angles, Perspective, and the Setting Sun.

« on: September 24, 2016, 05:56:14 PM »

I have seen this conversation with Tom play out before.

It always ended with Tom claiming something along the lines at some unspecified distance math stops working.

The math actually claims that something infinite happens at long distances. This has not been demonstrated to be true. You are expecting us to place our faith in the intellectual prowess of a group of people who believed that flies spontaneously generate from rotting meat.

Then you have to answer what distance math fails.  I certainly can accurately predict the angles things will appear to be to an observer at different distances and locations.  It is easy to verify this with a simple experiment.  So at what distance does math fail and why?  1 mile? 100? 1,000? 10,000?

The math certainly seems to work for celestial navigation.  The entire method involves predicting what angle stars will appear to the observer.  How come?  Math is certainly needed to get a fix and the stars are further away than the Sun in the FE models I am aware of. They are certainly much further away in the RE model.

37

Flat Earth Community / Re: Satellites.... Troposcatter Technology?

« on: September 24, 2016, 05:42:55 PM »

Tom for dish angles you can simply find it on line.  If you think that is incorrect information presented to mislead people call someone like Dish Network's customer service and ask what angle and direction the dish needs to be pointed. You can have several people calling saying they are from different locations across North America.  They certainly can not lie to their customers or they would get a lot of complaints about people not being able to watch their favorite shows.

A problem arises for you to determine the position using this method.  The distances involved are greater than 2-12 miles. If I understand you correctly math fails at distances beyond that.

38

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Angles, Perspective, and the Setting Sun.

« on: September 24, 2016, 05:34:19 PM »

I have seen this conversation with Tom play out before.

It always ended with Tom claiming something along the lines at some unspecified distance math stops working.  Except when it supports his belief.  I believe he accepts the calculations used to determine the Sun' altitude be various FE's.

I think we can define this distance as how ever far the horizon is from the observer when ships disappear from the bottom up.  So about 2-12 miles in most cases.

39

Flat Earth Theory / Re: The South Celestial Pole

« on: September 24, 2016, 05:24:45 PM »

I think Tom is missing the main point for some reason.

If three people are standing looking south in South Africa, Argentina, and Australia at the same time they all are looking in the same direction to see the South Star.

If the Earth is flat regardless of model I can think of only the following to explain it:

Light is capable of having much greater alterations to it's path then we are aware of.  In this case light is bending a tremendous amount in at least two directions. 

There is some mirror effect happening.  Maybe reflecting off a dome.

Current maps are far more off than the FE hypothesis suggest.  All the continents are aligned differently than we are told.

40

Flat Earth Community / Re: Satellites.... Troposcatter Technology?

« on: September 23, 2016, 01:42:34 AM »

Just to add to rabinoz post satellites generally have a useful life expectancy of at least 10 years.

The US was spending $13 million a year for LORAN. Which only covered portions of the Pacific and Atlantic.

The US spends $15 million  to insure the GPS sats are in correct orbits and tracking them.  That cost does not include the procurement of new satellites.  Just like the cost I mentioned did not include new LORAN transmitters.

So for a maintenance cost of about $2M more the US gets world wide navigation coverage.