[Bobby Shafto]

This is a New Zealand sunrise.

I've never seen the sun rise like this. I've been to Australia (and Argentina, Chile) but I never paid attention to how the sun rises or sets there.)  I'm used to seeing sunrises and sunsets angle to the right/north. 

Stellarium models sunset at my current latitude north of the equator like this, matching sunsets I routinely observe:



The same day of the year, Stellarium shows an Auckland, New Zealand sunset angling like the video above:



This is explicable with globe earth/distant sun mechanics. I don't know how this would work with a sun circling overhead a flat earth. Could this be a feature for zetetically determining whether we live on a globe or a not-globe earth?

(I believe I raised this point early on, or it might have been on the other community board. But I don't think it was every discussed. Has it? Is it addressed in any flat earth (or non-globe earth) media?)

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Edit: I did ask this on this board back in May. Never got a response and I forgot about it. Administration can combine the two topics. I won't complain.


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Also: globe-defender Walter Bislin created a flat earth model based on a dome over a monopole earth, and had to add a 2-dimensional (vertical and horizontal) light-bending parameter to make it work.

[stack]

Seems like a pretty easy experiment to replicate. I'm unclear as to how in FET the angles are to be explained, I think that is the main question right now.

Here's sort of a proxy for the experiment - Sydney goes left, Pushkar goes right:

Here’s a sunset from Sydney, Feb, 2015



Here’s a sunset from Pushkar, India, Feb, 2015. (Start at :13)

[Bobby Shafto]

The question I'm posing -- or, rather the proposition I'm making is that the differing angles of descent are explained by earth curvature and is distinguishing observational evidence that the earth is not flat.

I can't work out a mechanism on a flat earth that would produce that phenomenon. The 2-axis light bending would, but without an explanation and a way to test it, it's just ad hoc. But then since I am already convinced the earth is a globe, I may not be trying hard enough to come up with a flat earth answer.  So I offer it up to the community here for vetting.

I think this shows the earth to be a sphere. Why not?

[stack]

I know some people down under. We are people here. We could set up an experiment where those there and here record a timelapse of the rising or setting sun at the same time.
Compare angles.

And if anyone can come up with an FET reason as to why there's a left/right angle, I'd be super interested as to how that works.

[Bobby Shafto]

I know some people down under. We are people here. We could set up an experiment where those there and here record a timelapse of the rising or setting sun at the same time.
Compare angles.

And if anyone can come up with an FET reason as to why there's a left/right angle, I'd be super interested as to how that works.

The expected angles of descent for the next sunsets as viewed from San Diego in the US and Perth in Western Australia:



This is explicable in the globe earth model.

I can find nowhere that this has been addressed in defense of a flat earth or how it could be explained by a sun moving over a flat earth.

Is there skepticism that sunsets at latitudes more southerly than the sun show a trajectory that is different from latitudes north of the sun? If so, I agree I think we can scare up a witness from Australia. I think we have someone from Sydney and someone from Brisbane in our midst.

But if that's not contested, how is this phenomenon possible if the sun is traversing above a flat earth? I think it's impossible, unless light is bending sideways for some reason.

[Tom Bishop]

I know some people down under. We are people here. We could set up an experiment where those there and here record a timelapse of the rising or setting sun at the same time.
Compare angles.

And if anyone can come up with an FET reason as to why there's a left/right angle, I'd be super interested as to how that works.

The expected angles of descent for the next sunsets as viewed from San Diego in the US and Perth in Western Australia:



This is explicable in the globe earth model.

That's a pretty big difference in position and setting, for two people looking at the same sun. Please justify why that difference should be so much in the Round Earth model. Here I show that both the moon and sun are barely displaced to observers on far off points on earth, due to the large distances as imagined by the Round Earth Theory.

The image, as I am using it here, is assuming two observers on the equator. At 45 N and 45 S, the circle that the earth turns on is smaller than the equator, and it will be less... about ~1 degree instead of ~2 degrees.

Updated Image, Top-Down View:


Using the above method on the Diameter of the Moon's Orbit and the Diameter of the Earth, to compute the difference in viewing angle for the Sun is even worse:

Earth Diameter: 7917.5 mi

Diameter of Moon Orbit: 238,900 x 2 = 477,800 mi

Distance from Earth to Sun: 92,900,000 mi

Circumference of Earth to Sun Radius: 2 * pi * 92,900,000 = 583,707,915.037

583,707,915.037 / 360 = 1621410.8751 mi per degree

(Moon Orbit Diameter) 477,800 mi / 1621410.8751 = 0.29468 Degrees Max

(Earth Diameter) 7917.5 / 1621410.8751 = 0.00488 Degrees Max

[JCM]

I know some people down under. We are people here. We could set up an experiment where those there and here record a timelapse of the rising or setting sun at the same time.
Compare angles.

And if anyone can come up with an FET reason as to why there's a left/right angle, I'd be super interested as to how that works.

The expected angles of descent for the next sunsets as viewed from San Diego in the US and Perth in Western Australia:



This is explicable in the globe earth model.

That's a pretty big difference in position and setting, for two people looking at the same sun. Please justify why that difference should be so much in the Round Earth model. Here I show that both the moon and sun are barely displaced to observers on far off points on earth, due to the large distances as imagined by the Round Earth Theory.

The image, as I am using it here, is assuming two observers on the equator. At 45 N and 45 S, the circle that the earth turns on is smaller than the equator, and it will be less... about ~1 degree instead of ~2 degrees.

Updated Image, Top-Down View:


Using the above method on the Diameter of the Moon's Orbit and the Diameter of the Earth, to compute the difference in viewing angle for the Sun is even worse:

Earth Diameter: 7917.5 mi

Diameter of Moon Orbit: 238,900 x 2 = 477,800 mi

Distance from Earth to Sun: 92,900,000 mi

Circumference of Earth to Sun Radius: 2 * pi * 92,900,000 = 583,707,915.037

583,707,915.037 / 360 = 1621410.8751 mi per degree

(Moon Orbit Diameter) 477,800 mi / 1621410.8751 = 0.29468 Degrees Max

(Earth Diameter) 7917.5 / 1621410.8751 = 0.00488 Degrees Max

Mr. Bishop, you are pulling from Sandokhans war chest for making an argument looks like.  Your numbers have no accounting for the tilt of the earth nor the orientation of the planet in its orbit around the Sun.  Surely, this information would be critical in describing what is happening.  The bigger point is that it IS HAPPENING.  Just because you don't understand it, changes nothing. Your faulty mathematical experiment to debunk the globe fails badly.  Forget the math part you got wrong, it makes sense on a tilted on its axis globe, it is impossible on a flat earth.

  The point of the OP is How is what we are seeing possible on a flat earth with the sun orbiting above it?   

[Tom Bishop]

Mr. Bishop, you are pulling from Sandokhans war chest for making an argument looks like.  Your numbers have no accounting for the tilt of the earth nor the orientation of the planet in its orbit around the Sun.

Bobby posted what two observers see from the US and Australia at the same time. My examples have observers at the maximum possible distance on earth, and the displacement of the sun's angle is "0.00488 Degrees Max"

What does the tilt of the earth have anything to do with it? The same would apply if the earth were rested on its side or upside-down.

Show how it is wrong, or show your own math, rather than baseless dismissal.

[JCM]

Mr. Bishop, you are pulling from Sandokhans war chest for making an argument looks like.  Your numbers have no accounting for the tilt of the earth nor the orientation of the planet in its orbit around the Sun.

Bobby posted what two observers see from the US and Australia at the same time. My examples have observers at the maximum possible distance on earth, and the displacement of the sun's angle is "0.00488 Degrees Max"

What does the tilt of the earth have anything to do with it? The same would apply if the earth were rested on its side or upside-down.

Show how it is wrong, or show your own math, rather than baseless dismissal.

Maybe show why the angle matters at all, assuming your math is accurate with respect to the direction of the sun's movement?  The sun is just setting in a different direction because the viewers are nearly upside down. The concept is very simple.  Explain the difference in directions the sun is moving. Throwing numbers up that have nothing to do with the observation the sun is moving in different directions does not answer the OPs and the obvious question posed to you. 

Are you suggesting that the sun going in different directions is possible on a flat earth or not possible on a globe? 

[Bobby Shafto]

Bobby posted what two observers see from the US and Australia at the same time.

Not at the same time. The sunsets are the same day but a little over 12 hours apart.

Longitude isn't the point. Latitude is. Substitute Hong Kong for San Diego if you feel "same time" is important. Hong Kong sunset and Perth sunset exhibit same difference in angle of descent characteristic. I understand why that is if the earth is a globe. I know of no explanation for how that can work with a sun circuiting overhead a flat earth. Is there one?

[Tom Bishop]

Bobby posted what two observers see from the US and Australia at the same time.

Not at the same time. The sunsets are the same day but a little over 12 hours apart. Longitude isn't the point. Latitude is. Substitute Hong Kong for San Diego if you feel "same time" is important. Hong Kong sunset and Perth sunset exhibit same difference in angle of descent characteristic.

I don't feel that the "same time" is important. It's the same sunset and there is no difference in the Earth-Sun system 12 hours apart. With your example of Hong Kong and Perth on the same latitude line the same is seen, as you assert.

I understand why that is if the earth is a globe. I know of no explanation for how that can work with a sun circuiting overhead a flat earth. Is there one?

You understand how it works in RET? Well, as we can see above in my previous posts, I do not understand how this works with the RET Earth-Sun system. I am hoping that you will be able to explain it to me.

Once we discover its cause, which is most assuredly known in RET's astronomical masterpiece, we can then see how that mechanism might apply to other world models.

[titidam]

With your example of Hong Kong and Perth on the same latitude line the same is seen, as you assert.

*whispers* longitude

[Tom Bishop]

With your example of Hong Kong and Perth on the same latitude line the same is seen, as you assert.

*whispers* longitude

I was going off of Bobby's "Longitude isn't the point. Latitude is." It doesn't matter. Rather than pointing out trivialities, how about addressing the substance of the issue?

[titidam]

I was going off of Bobby's "Longitude isn't the point. Latitude is." It doesn't matter. Rather than pointing out trivialities, how about addressing the substance of the issue?

Is it so trivial that you need to remove your first reply, which consisted in copy/pasting the definition of latitude for me?

I mean it's no big deal, everybody makes that kind of mistakes. Most often those who don't have an interest in astronomical models, though.

Now that it's cleared up and we're all knowledgeable, I too would like the answer to this question. It seems very interesting.

[JCM]

WHY would the Sun go a different direction?  That is easy. The person in the Southern Hemisphere is “upside down” comparatively.  If you are upside down looking at the same object, the object looks different.  If you had a screen, and the left side of it was blinking green, took a picture of it.  That picture shows the left side green right? Now go upside down, take a picture, and the right side of the box is blinking green.   Same thing with directions the sun is moving. If right side up you see an object tracking right, upside down it looks like it’s going left.  It’s the same reason why the moon is “upside down” in the Southern Hemisphere.

[Bobby Shafto]

You understand how it works in RET? Well, as we can see above in my previous posts, I do not understand how this works with the RET Earth-Sun system. I am hoping that you will be able to explain it to me.

For the sun to present an angle of ascent/descent to an observer, there has to be bearing drift as the sun sets. Right?
Locations north of the latitude of the sun's path observe northerly bearing shift at sunset.
Locations south of the sun's latitude observe southerly bearing drift during sunset.
The rate of drift increases the further north or south of the sun's latitude one is (resulting in a shallower angle of descent).
The rate of drift decreases the closer one is to the sun's latitude (resulting in a steeper angle).
If you're at the same latitude as the sun, the sun will rise straight up and set straight down.

Can these observations be met for a sun transiting over a flat surface? I can't solve that riddle unless I can connect west with east without invoking curve, like a Pac-Man or Asteroids video game 2D playing field. Otherwise, the surface needs to curve, bending around on itself, like a cylinder or a sphere, in order to satisfy the above-listed observations. (Distinguishing between cylinder and sphere...or cone or some other 3D curved surface requires more refined comparisons of the rate of bearing drift north or south of the sun's latitudinal path or applying other observations, but since this is a flat vs sphere topic and not a sphere vs. some other convex-surface shape that's not a sphere, I think we can ignore that refinement). 

On a sphere, you can track azimuth drift to a path along a parallel line of latitude that meets all of the criteria above. I am unable to do that for a finite flat plane that doesn't have a space warp to allow the sun to follow a cyclical path without causing one of the above criteria to fail.

Once we discover its cause, which is most assuredly known in RET's astronomical masterpiece, we can then see how that mechanism might apply to other world models.

Have at it. I can't do it, which is why I posed the question. If it can't be done for a flat surface, I think this feature of sun motion provides another distinguishing characteristic between flat and convex earth.

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Note: a more elegant way to describe this in a globe earth model is to explain how terrestrial latitude equates to celestial latitude but I feared that would bog down with objections or confusion about astronomical concepts which, themselves, might be doubted and distracting. But here's a set of images of the sun and the celestial sphere, showing how over a globe, latitudes are tilted depending on observer location, and how that marries with the angle of the sun's trajectory with the horizon.



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Edit to add a video link I made using Stellarium and a projection of the equatorial grid showing how it tilts with latitude changes. The only change from each view is location: Hong Kong, Jakarta, Perth and back to Hong Kong. All other parameters are the same:

[Tom Bishop]

WHY would the Sun go a different direction?  That is easy. The person in the Southern Hemisphere is “upside down” comparatively.  If you are upside down looking at the same object, the object looks different.  If you had a screen, and the left side of it was blinking green, took a picture of it.  That picture shows the left side green right? Now go upside down, take a picture, and the right side of the box is blinking green.   Same thing with directions the sun is moving. If right side up you see an object tracking right, upside down it looks like it’s going left.  It’s the same reason why the moon is “upside down” in the Southern Hemisphere.

The same upside-down difference can be said for FET. See this example of lunar orientation on FET vs RET:

https://wiki.tfes.org/The_Phases_of_the_Moon

Lunar Orientation

Q: Why does the orientation of the moon look the same to everyone one earth regardless of where they are?

A: It doesn't. The orientation varies depending on your location on earth. In FET this is explained by the different observers standing on either side of the moon. On one side it is right-side up, and on the other side it is upside down.

Imagine a green arrow suspended horizontally above your head pointing to the North. Standing 50 feet to the South of the arrow it is pointing "downwards" towards the Northern horizon. Standing 50 feet to the North of the arrow, looking back at it, it points "upwards" above your head to the North. The arrow flip-flops, pointing down or away from the horizon depending on which side you stand.

The lunar orientation varies depending on where you stand on a Round Earth as well. Here is the RET explanation for why the moon turns upside down when you stand on either side of it: http://web.archive.org/web/20070218184023/http://www.seed.slb.com/qa2/FAQView.cfm?ID=1137

[stack]

WHY would the Sun go a different direction?  That is easy. The person in the Southern Hemisphere is “upside down” comparatively.  If you are upside down looking at the same object, the object looks different.  If you had a screen, and the left side of it was blinking green, took a picture of it.  That picture shows the left side green right? Now go upside down, take a picture, and the right side of the box is blinking green.   Same thing with directions the sun is moving. If right side up you see an object tracking right, upside down it looks like it’s going left.  It’s the same reason why the moon is “upside down” in the Southern Hemisphere.

The same upside-down difference can be said for FET. See this example of lunar orientation on FET vs RET:

https://wiki.tfes.org/The_Phases_of_the_Moon

Seems like apples and oranges to me. We're not talking about 'orientation' so much as angular movement. But if we do look at it statically from an orientation perspective, in the image below, the top two images are Hong Kong, bottom two, Perth, same date and time. Orientation is from the left looking at the sunset and then from the right looking at a sunset for each city. From both opposing viewing angles, Hong Kong still sets at the same angle, to the right. As well, both Perth's set at the same angle opposite from Hong Kong, to the left. At a minimum, I should see the left and right Hong Kong's 'flip', oppose each other according to the wiki. Same for the Perth's. I don't see this as being explained by 'The Phases of the Moon' wiki entry.



We can explain this observed behavior in RET. But for FET, we don't know what the model is. Does the sun circle about around a north pole axis? Does is figure 8 or pac-man around a bi-pole model? Or something else entirely? Seemingly, FET doesn't have an answer for this observation.

[Curious Squirrel]

Another way to look at it that I'm hoping will help you visualize what's happening on a globe Earth. On the Equinox the sun passes essentially right over the equator. So someone looking out at the horizon would watch it set vertically straight into the equator. Like the central 'horizon' in the following image. As you've shown above, moving across the Earth can't change the perspective or similar to the sun, so anywhere we go on Earth has to keep that same straight up and down line. Well, if we go to roughly 45°N or S, the horizon has also shifted by about that same amount, as the two 'horizon' lines to the left and right show.


Now, lets rotate the image so we can see what the guy at 45°N sees the sun doing in relation to his horizon.


As we can see, the sun has moved to be entering the horizon at roughly a 45° angle, because of the move in the curve of the Earth. Going in the opposite direction would yield a shift towards the other direction as you can see in the images. How is this explained in a FE model, where the sun is spinning around above the Earth, and should only ever be curving in one direction at any one time? Or do you not agree with something being said here, and if so why not? This is all just observation based. RE has a rather easy solution, but I don't have any idea how to make this work on a FE.

[Bobby Shafto]

One of the first zetetic experiments I tried to perform when I joined these boards last Spring was triangulation of the sun having board participants take compass readings of the sun and provide their general city of observation (to avoid privacy intrusion). It was actually on the other board where I tried this, but the only FE participant who was responsive  was some character named Brotherhood of the Dome who refused to take part and subsequently claimed to put me on ignore for using Ankara as his hypothetical location instead of Constantinople. I can't remember if I solicited that effort here or not.

This will relate to sun descent angle, but allow me to work through the triangulation process first since it relates.

Sunset was only a few hours ago in Hong Kong, and according to both TimeandDate and Stellarium, it set at 0946 UTC on bearing of 255°. At that same time, the sun was still 10° above the horizon in Perth, on a bearing of 260°. I marked the location of the sun -- where over earth it was at its zenith; but if you plot straight lines from those two locations along those lines lines of bearing on a standard earth map projection, you get...



...the lines don't intersect at the point where we know the sun to be. How is that resolved?

The above map is a Mercator projection of a globe. The straight lines I drew aren't straight when transformed to a globe. On the Mercator project, global straight lines are great circle lines, which can appear curved when projected onto a flat map, meridians and equator being exceptions on a Mercator projection. If I draw the lines as great circles, originating on 255° and 260° bearings respectfully, I get this:



And transforming the projection into a 2D representation of the globe, the lines now appear wrapping around the globe and straight, just as a string stretched between two points on a ball would look; like this:



That's how a globe earth resolves the triangulation puzzle. Whatever flat earth map winds up being the solution must be able to do that too. The standard monopole FE maps don't. The bi-polar FE map doesn't either. I don't have a solution. If you solve for one set of observations in one part of the world, you ruin the solution for another part.

Which brings me to path of the sun across the sky. I'm just using angle of descent because it's an easy to visualize portion of the sun's apparent path for an observer. Sunrise would work well too.

But as I explained earlier, the sun can appear to travel at an angle as it sets because it's bearing shifts as its elevation declines. The sun is currently sought of the equator on a southerly 13° parallel. It's migrating more toward the south everyday on its way to the Tropic of Capricorn. On the Mercator projection, latitude lines do appear straight and so the sun tracks across the earth as depicted. But if you take the bearing measurements from Perth and Hong Kong throughout the day, you'll find that if plotted on a Mercator projection, they'll appear to advance and triangulate more quickly, accelerating ahead of the sun as it moves toward the west.



But at least observers at both locations will see the proper direction of drift: Hong Kong will observe bearing increasing clockwise while Perth's bearing line to the sun will be counterclockwise. So, as long as the parallel (line of latitude) that the sun is traversing is a straight line on a FE map, it will (mostly) produce the correct bearing drift. But if you draw the earth map with the sun's path curving in order to stay at the correct latitude, as with every FE map I've yet seen, it will upset the bearing drift (angle of descent) for either one location or the other.

But on a globe, everything resolves. Here, on a Mercator projection with bearing lines drawn as great circles:



And here when wrapped on a globe presentation:




A globe earth has a simple answer for how one location can see the sun angle southward during sunset and another location see the sun angle northward.
If this can be resolved on a flat earth, I haven't figured out how or seen anyone else do so.

I take that back. I have seen one person: flat earth critic Walter Bislin modeled a flat earth using a monopole version of flat earth, but he had to make light bend both vertically and horizontally to do it. He acknowledged he didn't know what could explain such bending, but just that that was the only way he could make it work.