Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« on: May 22, 2019, 10:02:30 PM »
On Tom Bishop Experiment at Wiki, he reports to have seem people playing at Lighthouse State Beach at Santa Cruz in Monterey Bay CA, from Lovers Point, 23 miles away, using a "good"  telescope, on a cold clear day.   Below a picture of the place he was, pointing directly to Lighthouse State Beach (Santa Cruz).  The picture is from Google Street View, with the maximum magnification it allows, perhaps 3 or 4 times.  Note the map at left and the compass at right, what help me to try to point to the Lighthouse State Beach.  I may be wrong with the exact location, tried my best.  Of course that camera is pretty bad, can't see anything on the other side of the bay, barely the mountains.

Can I ask you what brand and model of the telescope you used?
what aperture? eyepiece?
You said about chest on the ground, your telescope was not on tripod?
Do you have any pictures from the beach through the telescope?
It would be nice to have the pictures at the Wiki, don't you think?

The second picture is the opposite, from the Lighthouse State Beach directly to Lovers Point, at maximum magnification (3 or 4x).




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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2019, 10:10:08 PM »
You are talking about something that occurred 12 years ago. I no longer live in that area, nor do I have the telescope. It was a refracting Celestron that was advertising itself as 500x equivalent. The experiment was conducted from several different spots in that area.

Feel free to do the experiment on a body of water. The calmer the better. Sometimes it is foggy, but at other times it is not. It's the same Flat Earth water convexity experiment as all the others.

At one point I did have pictures of some objects across that bay that should not be seen, which I did not take, but posted on the other forum, but they seem to have disappeared from the internet and from local files several hard drives ago. There are plenty of other images of the Flat Earth scenes online these days, however.

I am thinking of an improvement on the experiment, with timelapse photography: Capture an object that shouldn't be seen and take a timelapse all day long, similar to the skunk bay timelapses. If it is really refraction then it should be apparent with the refractive effects over time. The effects which occur with the Skunk Bay peninsula give the impression that the fully revealed scene is not refraction.

Ben, Taboo Conspiracy, compares a Flat Earth scene which should not be seen with a "sinking" effect that occurs later in the day. The Sinking Ship effect is more distorted than the Flat Earth scene. Additional observations like this would be beneficial.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 02:04:55 AM by Tom Bishop »

tellytubby

Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #2 on: May 22, 2019, 11:08:03 PM »
Quote
You are talking about something that occurred 12 years ago. I no longer live in that area, nor do I have the telescope. It was a refracting Celestron that was advertising itself as 500x equivalent. The experiment was conducted from several different spots in that area.

Out of interest Tom what was the aperture of said Celestron telescope?  The accepted useable magnification limit of a telescope is 50x per inch or aperture so to support 500x magnification it would have to be a 10in refractor at least.  For a reflector that is average budget but for a refractor that is a LOT of dosh.   More commonly these sort of powers are advertised on small (60/70mm) refractors which are way beyond what they are capable of being used at.

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2019, 01:43:54 AM »
As I recall, when looking through it everything was upside-down, and it was a wide-body, so it was a reflector, not a refactor which I had typed above. It was a fairly wide aperture, but I don't know the details anymore. I had selected it because telescopes which collect more light are said to be better than telescopes which collect less. 500x may or may not have been usable, but that is what I recall was advertised with the eye pieces and all.

I did acquire another telescope recently, and have been considering locations for a time-lapse. An added infra-red filter would be even better to cut through the atmosphere. I do believe that should be possible to tell whether it is refraction or not through long time-lapses. The flat earth effect that many report seeing is real. Perhaps I will find a nice christian Flat Earth group near me to bear witness.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 02:16:00 AM by Tom Bishop »

Rama Set

Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2019, 04:40:31 AM »
As I recall, when looking through it everything was upside-down, and it was a wide-body, so it was a reflector, not a refactor which I had typed above. It was a fairly wide aperture, but I don't know the details anymore. I had selected it because telescopes which collect more light are said to be better than telescopes which collect less. 500x may or may not have been usable, but that is what I recall was advertised with the eye pieces and all.

Kind of a bad experiment then.  Poorly conceived.  Unrecorded and unrepeatable.  Not to mention, on your view, experiments happen in controlled conditions, so why call it an experiment to begin with?  I would hope you would have a bit more integrity for how often you shake your finger at others.  I guess everyone can be a hypocrite.

Quote
I did acquire another telescope recently, and have been considering locations for a time-lapse. An added infra-red filter would be even better to cut through the atmosphere. I do believe that should be possible to tell whether it is refraction or not through long time-lapses. The flat earth effect that many report seeing is real. Perhaps I will find a nice christian Flat Earth group near me to bear witness.

Perhaps you will be a little more diligent like Bobby Shafto was, and produce some verifiable and repeatable results instead of the wiki "experiment" which wouldn't pass muster for a freshman science student.

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Offline Tumeni

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Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2019, 06:10:26 AM »
I am thinking of an improvement on the experiment, with timelapse photography: Capture an object that shouldn't be seen and take a timelapse all day long, similar to the skunk bay timelapses. If it is really refraction then it should be apparent with the refractive effects over time. The effects which occur with the Skunk Bay peninsula give the impression that the fully revealed scene is not refraction.

Why not do this at an altitude above sea level, where the refraction effects won't affect the experiment?

The idea of the experiment is surely a loftier goal than to film some refraction ...

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tellytubby

Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2019, 06:28:52 AM »
Quote
As I recall, when looking through it everything was upside-down, and it was a wide-body, so it was a reflector, not a refactor which I had typed above. It was a fairly wide aperture, but I don't know the details anymore. I had selected it because telescopes which collect more light are said to be better than telescopes which collect less. 500x may or may not have been usable, but that is what I recall was advertised with the eye pieces and all.

I did acquire another telescope recently, and have been considering locations for a time-lapse. An added infra-red filter would be even better to cut through the atmosphere. I do believe that should be possible to tell whether it is refraction or not through long time-lapses. The flat earth effect that many report seeing is real. Perhaps I will find a nice christian Flat Earth group near me to bear witness.

Everything would be upside down in an astronomical telescope. That is perfectly normal. You can distinguish very easily between a refractor and a reflector simply from the optics of the telescope. Does it use a mirror or a lens to collect light?

As for the 'flat Earth effect', not sure what you mean by that and if you need more guidance on how to use a telescope properly then a local astronomical society would be much more useful over a nice Christian Flat Earth group who have probably got no more experience of using telescopes than you clearly have.  What do they need to 'bare witness' to?
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 09:47:56 AM by tellytubby »

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2019, 05:23:49 PM »
Quote
Kind of a bad experiment then.  Poorly conceived.  Unrecorded and unrepeatable.

Plenty have performed the water convexity experiments with a Flat Earth result.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za06.htm - Earth Not a Globe - Many experiments, repeated by Lady Blount and others

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHGTsCZGHJQ -- "Why I'm a Flat Earther" - 37 experiments, many of which are water convexity tests. Experiments and observations discussed range from 6 miles to over a hundred miles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ3TLdcVNfA -- Pier2Pier - Dr. John D - 9.5 mi test

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_rWES5dJu4 -- Flat Earth Experiment 4 Mile Test

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwCRej0BoA4 -- 7.5 Mile Flat Earth Test On Frozen Lake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xACaIIUKtzE -- "Globe is Iced"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FkTaS7g4gE -- 9.5-mile Test Flat Earth Perth Australia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOAQHT_GWp0 -- Salton Sea Level Observation No curvature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03MmqXUeHxg -- "Flat Earther proves no curvature at Salton Sea. Leaves Scientists baffled" -- Conducted in association with the Independent Investigations Group

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8TsCPMCR_s&t=36s - Monterey Bay 13.3 miles

Ranty Flat Earth conducts numerous water convexity tests  on various lakes, and ocean inlets such as the Irish Sea. Ranty often sees windows and details on buildings from a distance of 18.5+ miles away, at an elevation of 4 feet, and he is using a P1000 camera, which is inferior in light collection to larger high quality telescopes. Ranty even brings his camera down to 2 inches above the water line.

Quote
Perhaps you will be a little more diligent like Bobby Shafto was, and produce some verifiable and repeatable results instead of the wiki "experiment" which wouldn't pass muster for a freshman science student.

The Flat Earth results of the water convexity experiment have been reproduced by others. If you don't believe it, you do the experiment.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2019, 01:58:41 AM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline Tim Alphabeaver

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Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2019, 08:05:31 PM »
Plenty have performed the water convexity experiments with a Flat Earth result.
I'm sure they have. Just-above-the-water shots are notoriously unreliable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVa2UmgdTM4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXULtYRZVPw&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGYvRB2WW2k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrihjP5tTTM
Any kind of long-distance observation over water is just going to get a "yeah but refraction" answer. It's really dumb, and I'm surprised that there are some people that haven't realised this yet.
**I move away from the infinite flat plane to breathe in

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2019, 09:15:10 PM »
Quote
I'm sure they have. Just-above-the-water shots are notoriously unreliable.

And you proceed to link us to just-above-the-water shots. The fact that the effect is inconsistent and often shows that the earth is flat disproves Aristotile's proof that the earth must be a globe because of the sinking ship effect. A two-thousand year old proof is debunked. Inconsistent observations are not proof for a globe.

The sinking ship effect is explained here: https://wiki.tfes.org/Sinking_Ship_Effect

Time-lapses will show the truth of the matter, of which is the real version and which version refraction is causing.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 09:19:13 PM by Tom Bishop »

tellytubby

Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #10 on: May 23, 2019, 09:21:08 PM »
Can anyone point to any links that are not from YouTube, Sacred Texts or FE Wiki?  Videos can easily be created and edited to suit a particular point of view, Sacred Texts is well... a bit old fashioned to say the least and FE Wiki is well... FE Wiki.

I just found this link which goes through the details of how far into the distance it is possible to see.  The article considers the situation with and without atmospheric refraction taken into account.  Based on the information contained in this page, the Welney Bridge Experiment that is described by the sacred texts link in Toms post above provides no conclusive evidence of a flat Earth.

https://aty.sdsu.edu/~aty/explain/atmos_refr/horizon.html

 
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 09:47:48 PM by tellytubby »

Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #11 on: May 23, 2019, 09:38:24 PM »
You are talking about something that occurred 12 years ago. I no longer live in that area, nor do I have the telescope. It was a refracting Celestron that was advertising itself as 500x equivalent. The experiment was conducted from several different spots in that area.

Tom, I have several telescopes, Celestron CPC800 and 1100, Meade LightSwitch and LX200.  To achieve 500x magnification with humanly visible optical resolution, you need a huge aperture, never produced on a refracting unit for popular use.  It would need to have a more than 10 inches of refracting glass as objective, you will not be able to carry it handy.    Also, the smaller eyepiece you can see anything from 12 years ago technology is no less than 6mm.  To have a 500x magnification such refractive telescope must have an objetive with a focal length of 3000mm (3 meters long), the whole telescope with the focuser would be longer than 3200mm. Celestron never produced such best. 

You may had a 50~70mm objective refracting unit, handly transportable, 800 to 1000m long, but it needs a nice mount (tripod), you can not use it on the floor. Somebody may stick a label with "500x" on it, but no cigar for that. That unit can give you a maximum of 200x magnification in the limit of optical resolution.  Optical resolution formula is d/1.22Lm, where d is aperture and Lm is the green light wavelength, often used on astronomy calculations. Regular 15mm~24mm objectives (popular for that telescope) can give you a somehow visible image with 40x~60x magnification.  With that magnification, a 2m tall image at 38km distance can be seen with an aparent size of around 0.02°, what is 1/20 of the size of the Moon.  It will be like watching the details of lunar crater Langrenus by naked eye, or a person as seen by naked eye 633 meters away (38000/60).  I need to admit, based on naked eye observation I can not even tell if there is a person 6 city blocks away, not even a car. 

A 22cm ball (or freesbe) has an apparent size of 1 arcsecond at 46.5km away, that is 1/1800 the size of the Moon.  My CPC1100's aperture is able to discriminate 0.5 arcsecond, so it in fact start to lose optical discrimination of a freesbe at 90km away, image fuses with surrounding photons. It means you can not recognize it as a freesbe, the wavelength of the image is higher than the size of the object, you just can actually see a different brighness fuzzy thing, nothing else.  Considering a person has similar size head, you can not even say if that fuzzy dot on top of a very tinny little stick is a person's body or a lamp pole, and that with my CPC1100  (11" mirror, schmidt cassegrain, 2800mm focal length, 85lb of weight, resolution 0.5 arcseconds, $3k) without any extra features.  Over many kilometers of water, moisture a lot, waves spraying it becomes really difficult.

Next time take pictures, from the telescope, from the scene, from the scene through the telescope with different eyepieces so you can have a progressive image magnifications.

There is an easy experiments, not even need image or photos, it uses three lasers, two powerful (minimum 1W units) red and one green lasers.  I wonder why nobody made it before.  Mount them side by side over a wooden base, green in the middle, with screw for vertical alignment.  Shot them at night over dry land against a building wall few miles away, as far as possible.  A person close to the buildings cell phone the one with the lasers, and tell him to adjust the screws for the three lasers to be aligned, no matter if they are angled or horizontal, just aligned, green as better is possible in the middle of reds.  Then go to the beach and shoot them over the 48km patch of water against a big building on the other side.  Using a cell phone tell the person with the lasers to very slowly tilt down the front of the lasers base until the spots disappears down at the receiving side, then slowly tilt it up until they appear, so you can measure the minimum altitude the lasers hit the building wall. Then, measure or estimate, how big is the difference of alignment between the green and red spots.   There will be a difference of alignment, the green laser will be lower than the reds. Red light refracts different from green on a moisture oceanic air.  By measuring the misalignment of the beams, meaning diference of refraction from red to green wavelength, we can calculate how much refraction it is actually happening in general, air density, etc.  So we can insert this variable on the minimum height of the receiving beams on the building side and calculate the correct numbers.  Another blue laser could be used together, since blue bends even more. We can not just assume the light travels straight over a patch of moisture air, it will bend down as if going through a very low density glass. This is specially pronounced over lakes, ocean, etc.  It also happens over land with less effect, the thermal difference from the ground and the air creates this cushion of moisture and warm turbulent air, it creates havoc for visible sight.  Sharpshooters know that and compensate for plain dirt terrain, moist, water, jungle, dry, rocky, sometimes even the color of the land changes everything, dark color retain more warmth and create uplift air flow.  It is very difficult to hit a 20cm target with a bullet at 1500m away, even with a supersonic projectile, they need to know and compensate for everything. That is not only compensation for the bullet travelling, it is also visual compensation on the scope, light refracts easily.


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Offline markjo

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Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #12 on: May 23, 2019, 10:26:14 PM »
Inconsistent observations are not proof for a globe.
Are you saying that inconsistent observations are proof of a flat earth?  I would contend that inconsistent observations are proof of a poorly controlled experiment and should be disregarded as inconclusive.
Abandon hope all ye who press enter here.

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If you can't demonstrate it, then you shouldn't believe it.

Rama Set

Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #13 on: May 24, 2019, 01:44:46 AM »
Quote
Kind of a bad experiment then.  Poorly conceived.  Unrecorded and unrepeatable.

Plenty have performed the water convexity experiments with a Flat Earth result.
<snip>

An excellent attempt at diverting attention from “The Bishop Experiment”. Once you actually address what I have said, we can get in to a contest of whose YouTube videos provide the best evidence.

Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #14 on: May 24, 2019, 07:33:33 AM »
Quote
I'm sure they have. Just-above-the-water shots are notoriously unreliable.

And you proceed to link us to just-above-the-water shots. The fact that the effect is inconsistent and often shows that the earth is flat disproves Aristotile's proof that the earth must be a globe because of the sinking ship effect. A two-thousand year old proof is debunked. Inconsistent observations are not proof for a globe.

The sinking ship effect is explained here: https://wiki.tfes.org/Sinking_Ship_Effect

Time-lapses will show the truth of the matter, of which is the real version and which version refraction is causing.
Please provide your proposals for measuring the shape and size of the earth.

Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #15 on: May 24, 2019, 02:48:35 PM »
Aristotle (not Aristotile in English) and so many others used the tools they have available at the time.
Whenever technology advances we have better tools to help us to understand and live over this planet.
We first navigate by the stars, then we found the use for magnetic compass, now computerized maps and GPS.
We don't fight technology advances, we never more need to seek wood into the backyard to make a coffee, we just press a button.
We don't need to set the saddle over a horse in order to be able to deliver a letter, we press "SEND" on the browser.

Our actual tools to make the same Aristotle experiment are a little bit more advanced, like satellites and very precise atomic clocks.
For refusing such tools, one should also refuse all other new tools, like Internet, cell phone, computers, a/c, cars, fridge, freezer, coffee maker, electricity, medicine.
You can always choose to go back to the cave world.

tellytubby

Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #16 on: May 24, 2019, 02:53:41 PM »
For a Bedford type experiment to hold any kind of scientific value it would have to be carried out under far more controlled conditions than it was possible for Rowbotham to setup. Rowbotham was clearly someone who carried out experiments with good intentions. He failed to take into consideration some error sources and causes that could make it appear that his predictions were actually right but not for the reason he wanted.

Over water for starters is not the best place to perform such an experiment as was explained in the link I posted yesterday. (anyone bothered to read through that yet as no comments posted). Ideally you would also remove any air immediately above the water surface re remove refraction effects.  Basically you need to remove any way for light to potential bend over the water surface and effectively increase straight line viewing distance.

So unless we can create a localised vacuum in that region of the Cambridgeshire Fens I think the lunar surface is our best bet.

« Last Edit: May 24, 2019, 02:59:09 PM by tellytubby »

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Offline Tumeni

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Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #17 on: May 24, 2019, 05:18:01 PM »
Quote
I'm sure they have. Just-above-the-water shots are notoriously unreliable.

And you proceed to link us to just-above-the-water shots.

I can link you to some well-above-the-water shots.

Wanna see?
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Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #18 on: May 24, 2019, 05:32:33 PM »
Based on lots of controversy, discussion and unreliability caused by light bending over different media density (over patches of water), ships disappearing over the horizon and such, what creates more questions than answers, I created a much more reliable experiment what I would recommend to append to Tom Bishop Experiment.  It is much more clear and concise, much less variables and doubts.

This suggestion is based on what much strongly changes from the RE to FE, the equatorial line circumference.  On RE the circumference plane is perpendicular to North Pole, it literally divides the North to South hemisphere, hypothetically you could walk straight over this RE equatorial line without making any turn left or right and end up in the same location after a very long walk.  On FE this equatorial line circumference plane is a horizontal circle on the ground, it is a flat surface, to walk over this line you need to keep turning left in a very long circle if walking eastward.  It is a completely different shape and that is what basically defines RE or FE.

It is very easy to check and verify if it is one or another, without any confusion or mishap, it shows clearly the results with a simple pole shadow line angle in reference to North Pole, as proposed on the exercise I posted on https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=14748.0 , specifically asking Tom Bishop to answer, he just sent me to read Equinox on Wiki, as if would answer my questions, obviously it does not. 

Again, I kindly ask Tom Bishop to answer, as a FE representative with significance in this forum, with a straight and direct answer about the angles from the exercise. It is indeed a simple geometry calculation, and will finish this for once and for all.  Also, if he wants, he could append this exercise to his own experience on wiki, or, create a Spherical Exercise on FE wiki, I would appreciate very much.

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Offline Tim Alphabeaver

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Re: Wiki - Tom Bishop Experiment
« Reply #19 on: May 24, 2019, 07:08:37 PM »
Inconsistent observations are not proof for a globe.
Sorry that I wasn't 100% clear. I think inconsistent observations are not proof for anything.
**I move away from the infinite flat plane to breathe in