[LuckyRedCS]

If the sun acts as a giant spotlight that circles around the earth, why can't we see it on the opposite side of the earth during night time? The ideas of perspective and horizon listed in the FAQ are based upon a round earth. If you stood on a flat plane that stretched infinitely, which is essentially what the earth would seem like to a human, the horizon line wouldn't conceal any parts of the plane. Anything that occured above this infinite plane would always be visible to someone standing on the same side of the plane. I keep seeing people reference "human inability" to see great distances, which isn't the case. The human eye can absorb light from any distance provided it is strong enough.

If I stood on an infinite plane with a spotlight circling around me, it would never appear to eclipse the horizon. If it did, it would have to have passed through the plane. The idea of a limited view distance and increased view distance as you gain height is based upon a rounded object, and simple geometry.

[bilbob77]

This is because the sun is a spotlight. If the light shines down, you can't see it from the side. This also explains the sunset, as the spotlight itself transitions into the spot on the ground disappearing past your visual horizon. Since light bouncing off a surface scatters omnidirectionally, the amount of photons that enter your eyes follows the inverse square rule. That is the farther away you get from a light source, it darkens exponentially. Consider a flash light shined directly in your eye from an inch a way. It would be painful, right? Now consider it a foot away.. a yard away.. By the time it is a mile away, you might not even see it at all. It certainly wouldn't hurt.

[LuckyRedCS]

This is because the sun is a spotlight.

But you can see the source of real spotlights when they aren't pointed at you... If you're trying to say the source of the light is no longer visible when it isn't over top of you, there would only be a few seconds each day that you could see light at all.

If the light shines down, you can't see it from the side.

Again, not how a spotlight works.

This also explains the sunset, as the spotlight itself transitions into the spot on the ground disappearing past your visual horizon.

I'm sorry, "past" my visual horizon? You must have missed 90% of my initial point that on a plane it is not possible for something to go beneath your horizon unless it physically passes through. This doesn't align with the belief that the sun is always 3000 miles in the sky. There is no magical perception change here nor illusion to speak of.

Since light bouncing off a surface scatters omnidirectionally, the amount of photons that enter your eyes follows the inverse square rule. That is the farther away you get from a light source, it darkens exponentially. Consider a flash light shined directly in your eye from an inch a way. It would be painful, right? Now consider it a foot away.. a yard away.. By the time it is a mile away, you might not even see it at all. It certainly wouldn't hurt.

You understand this rule also isn't supported by FET. If this law applies, then stars are truly light years away, not in some dome above the sun as you claim. If this is the case, then the human limit for vision well exceeds the "edge" of the earth.

[Rushy]

The atmoplane is not infinitely transparent to light. You can no more see the Sun despite it being within a linear distance of you anymore than you can see through a brick wall. After a great distance, all photons have been absorbed by the atmoplane, starting at the highest wavelengths. Even RET presupposes that this is true, because the visible Sun shifts to lower frequencies at sunset (the Sun looks redder).

[xenotolerance]

Why then can we see stars at the horizon at night? They're supposed to be even further than the sun is, in your model

[Rushy]

Why then can we see stars at the horizon at night? They're supposed to be even further than the sun is, in your model

Can you see all of the stars at night?

[xenotolerance]

That's not an answer to the question.

I infer that you're saying any stars not visible at night are just too far away, is that it?

[AATW]

The atmoplane is not infinitely transparent to light. You can no more see the Sun despite it being within a linear distance of you anymore than you can see through a brick wall. After a great distance, all photons have been absorbed by the atmoplane, starting at the highest wavelengths. Even RET presupposes that this is true, because the visible Sun shifts to lower frequencies at sunset (the Sun looks redder).

Atmodome, surely?

Surely if it was just absorption by the atmosphere the sun would slowly fade out, which is not what we see.
And I've never understood how come you think that the light diagonally from the sun to earth can't reach us when the sun is far enough away but the light sideways from the sun is powerful enough to hit the moon and bounce down to us. Unless you think the moon is self illuminated, but then you get into all kinds of problems about moon phases and the fact that with a telescope you can clearly see the shadows which indicate it is being lit by something.

Also see my thread about shadows at sunset which prove that the sun is either physically low in the sky at sunset or light is bending so it appears to be.

[StinkyOne]

The atmoplane is not infinitely transparent to light. You can no more see the Sun despite it being within a linear distance of you anymore than you can see through a brick wall. After a great distance, all photons have been absorbed by the atmoplane, starting at the highest wavelengths. Even RET presupposes that this is true, because the visible Sun shifts to lower frequencies at sunset (the Sun looks redder).

In the real world, the Sun is never completely blocked by the atmosphere. Actually, not even close. The amount of sunlight absorbed by the clouds and atmosphere is only around 20% in the most moist air. In drier air, it is close to 10%. Longer wavelengths are least affected, which is the only thing you said that matches observations. Saying all photons at a distance are absorbed by the atmosphere is not based on any observation or fact.

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0493%281967%29095%3C0354%3AROSTSA%3E2.3.CO%3B2

[bilbob77]

RET includes the theory of Raleigh scattering, which has been proven in laboratory experiments, and is not exclusive to RET. The commonality is that there is more atmosplane around us than there is above us. That is why you can see stars, but can't see the sun. It's also why the sun appears to turn red at sunset.

Horizon doesn't always refer to something dipping below something else. In RET, the universe has a light horizon, beyond which we can't see because we can't see light emitted farther away in light years than the age of the universe.

Some stars are brighter than other stars. Our sun is relatively dim compared to what's out there. If you look at the "Scale of the Universe" charts, our sun, indeed our whole solar system could be dwarfed by larger stars.

The only thing I don't really understand is why does the sun appear to drop below the horizon instead of fade into the distance? Where is it going? It's definitely always daytime somewhere.

[bilbob77]

That was easy to explain.. Electromagnetic Acceleration.. It creates the illusion of a horizon because light curves upwards.





~image resized
- junker

[juner]

That was easy to explain.. Electromagnetic Acceleration.. It creates the illusion of a horizon because light curves upwards.





~image resized
- junker

There is an edit feature, learn to use it.

Also, you aren't adding anything else to the thread with this. Refrain from low-content posting in the upper fora. Warned.

[JohnAdams1145]

RET includes the theory of Raleigh scattering, which has been proven in laboratory experiments, and is not exclusive to RET. The commonality is that there is more atmosplane around us than there is above us. That is why you can see stars, but can't see the sun. It's also why the sun appears to turn red at sunset.

Bad ad-hoc explanation. It's well-known that sunset is a fast event; you would expect the spotlight idea to make a slowly darkening sky instead (all the way to black night).

Also your idea that the atmosphere blocks enough light to make this happen is very poorly considered. Why can we see stars near the horizon? Their light has to travel through a lot of atmosphere. Also the whole EA "theory" is quite bad.

[Ratboy]

Bad ad-hoc explanation. It's well-known that sunset is a fast event; you would expect the spotlight idea to make a slowly darkening sky instead (all the way to black night).

Also your idea that the atmosphere blocks enough light to make this happen is very poorly considered. Why can we see stars near the horizon? Their light has to travel through a lot of atmosphere. Also the whole EA "theory" is quite bad.

And as mentioned many times elsewhere on this forum,
1) Sunsets are fast near the equator but slow as you go north and south.  If you are far enough north, you can take a snowmobile up a hill farther away from the sun and see it after it had set for you.  It has nothing to do with the distance the sun is away.
2) If Rowbotham had lived in New Zealand, he would have proposed a south pole that the sun circles around due to how the sun travels when you watch it down under.  If he lived at the equator, he would not have proposed this since the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
3) with a kid's telescope, you can project the sun's image on a screen and see it.  The sun spots show that the sun turns to face England as it travels across the sky.  Same as the moon, it always shows the same face to England (the man in the moon image).  Problem is that this also works in China and Chile, so how can the sun and moon keep the same side to everyone all the time if they are circling over head.
4) When you are up north and go up a hill to see the sun by traveling farther away it is lower than you are. 
5) The sun, moon and planets are always within one of the houses of the zodiac.  They might appear directly over someone living on the tropic of cancer or capricorn or the equator or anywhere in between these places.  The stars and planets and moon and sun all have to bounce around between these lines some on a yearly some monthly and some daily basis.  And this works for the southern hemisphere as well. 
6) If you live in England and ignore the rest of the world FE might work.  If you have to deign to admit that some people might live south of the equator, it falls apart pretty fast.

[spoonbow]

Let us also not forget that the sun is a mere 2000 miles above the surface of the plane when directly overhead, a distance representing less than 1/10th the diameter of the known FE world. This means that not only would the shape of the spotlight's beam have to change asymmetrically seasonally to satisfy what is observed in terms of length and intensity of sunlight, the orbital speed of the sun itself would have to increase as it described a larger circle through the sky during winter. And please stop with the vanishing point/atmospheric distortion arguments. What nonsense. Try this at home:

Go outside in after dark. Have a helpful assistant hold an illuminated flashlight, pointing straight down, out a second story window. Stand directly below the flashlight and look up at it. Might want to squint. What shape is the illuminated portion of the flashlight? Round, right? Move off a distance so that the light is at about a 45 degree angle relative to the horizon. Flashlight still pointing straight down? Looking at the flashlight, not the light it is casting, what shape is the illuminated area? It's not round anymore, is it? It's elliptical. If we were on a flat earth you would see this same effect with relation to the sun as it moved across the sky throughout the day. When it first hove into view in the morning, it would be elliptical in shape, possibly so narrow as to appear as a straight line. As it "rose" in the sky through the day it would appear to become progressively more circular, only presenting itself as a perfect circle when directly overhead (at the equinox), then narrowing again as it receded. This effect would be most noticeable at high southern latitudes, I should think.

And then there's the problem of having a rather large, hot, nuclear-fusion-driven ball of plasma only 2000 miles away... 

[AATW]

The whole spotlight sun thing has so many holes in it.
As you say, why does the shape not keep changing? Why can't we see it at night - you can see spotlight's light when they're not shining directly on you.
They keep shouting "perspective" to explain sunset but long shadows can only be explained by a light source being physically low in the sky. I made a whole thread about that, it's telling that there has been no flat earth response.

Maybe they are just trolling us and don't really believe this stuff after all.