Stand Up to Detect the Curve of the Earth

[Mick West]

Anyone with a brain can take pictures of things disappearing over the horizon, it doesn't mean the surface curves.

Actually that's EXACTLY what it means. It's a function of light travelling in straight lines. I've got an actually flat marble counter, and there's no way of getting anything disappearing over its "horizon".

You said you had photos from the beach. So post them.

 

[Trailblazer]

And once you've posted the photos from the beach maybe you could post a survey of the football field proving it is dead flat?

 

[LDavid47]

I have been removed just posting this.

After months of research I have no doubt there is no curvature anywhere to be seen. If the curvature is measurable it should be observable as targets disappearing over the horizon could NOT stay perpendicular on the surface of a ball. This links proves without a shadow of a doubt that no matter how many 100 miles of flat horizon there is you cannot create a curve.
https://beyondhorizons.eu/tag/photography/

Hey all,

I'm a long time (almost everyday) lurker.. I think I only ever posted in the welcome thread. First off I am NOT a flat farther, and this website has helped me drop a lot of other CT belief's that I previously had. However, I was wondering what happened with the pictures JTNolan was discussing. Were him and Phillipe the same person? lol ... Was he trolling or trying to prove a Flat Earth? I couldn't really tell what he was arguing about and then it appears he was banned. It seemed the conversation was never finished or maybe moved to a different thread. Also, I realize this post is almost a year old, so, if no one sees this post and I'm forever left to ponder about the infamous JT ... I'll survive.

Thanks

 

[Mick West]

Hey all,

I'm a long time (almost everyday) lurker.. I think I only ever posted in the welcome thread. First off I am NOT a flat farther, and this website has helped me drop a lot of other CT belief's that I previously had. However, I was wondering what happened with the pictures JTNolan was discussing. Were him and Phillipe the same person? lol ... Was he trolling or trying to prove a Flat Earth? I couldn't really tell what he was arguing about and then it appears he was banned. It seemed the conversation was never finished or maybe moved to a different thread. Also, I realize this post is almost a year old, so, if no one sees this post and I'm forever left to ponder about the infamous JT ... I'll survive.

Thanks

His thread is here:
https://www.metabunk.org/measuring-the-horizon-with-a-pier.t8784/

He closed his account after a temporary ban, saying Metabunk was "biased towards certain realities"

 

[LDavid47]

Thanks, I appreciate it ... flat earth YouTube channels and Blogs are never guilty of bias towards a specific opinion .. I'm currently in my 3rd year of College studying Psychology and I honestly find this FE stuff so fascinating. Especially reading their comments on YouTube.. they contradict themselves so often; accuse others of virtually everything they do; and seemingly only trust people with absolute zero credentials. It really is quite baffling.

 

[TheWacoKid]

Especially reading their comments on YouTube.. they contradict themselves so often; accuse others of virtually everything they do; and seemingly only trust people with absolute zero credentials. It really is quite baffling.

I believe that this is the most comical (and also irritating) aspect of the truly "all-in" conspiracy theorists.

The constant yammering about how people need to "wake up" and "open their mind". Referring to those who raise opposition to their beliefs as "sheep"... "brainwashed"... whatever. Very predictable and [...] stuff. Yet, these people are as indoctrinated as any hardcore religious [people] you'll find out there. When a terror attack, a mass shooting... etc... occurs they run [...] towards the first YouTube videos that bring about hints of a conspiracy. Never do they question the assertions made in those videos. Never do they attempt to debunk the claims made there.

Personally, I find it especially irritating. Seeing as I used to be one of those people... So... A) I see my past self in them, and it brings about some embarrassing feelings. B) Being told to have an "open mind" about something like 9/11 is just so ludicrous. I was a truther for the better part of a decade. I know all of your arguments backwards and forwards. Not only that, I know how to debunk them. So... it's frustrating to hear that. Even when I mention to them "I was a truther"... They go "suuurrre you were" and roll their eyes.

Ugh...

It's a weird mindset to describe. Like any other belief system -- it's a trap which you cannot see until you are clear of it. Many never get there.



[Mod: minor politeness edits]

 

[Neil Obstat]

This photo:
View attachment 27126

Might be from here:
View attachment 27127
Which is 57 feet (eye level being 62-63 feet)

The un-refracted view from there is similar.
View attachment 27128

Edit: Scratch that. I though those were bushes blocking the path, but the path continues down to sea level.


I await @Philippe's clarification of the photo spot, and some photos from the beach (of Catalina would be fine)

The first photo above is a nice shot of Catalina. Could be better detail, though. There's a bush in the way on the left side! Whenever I see a shot like this that shows the SE end of the island from the L.A. shore, and it's going to be compared to a similar view taken from near the water level in order to demonstrate Earth's curvature, I hear myself saying, "If you'd only zoom in on Avalon, we'd be able to see the Casino from here."

The reason is, from that high point on the Palos Verdes bluffs on a clear day the Casino appears to be setting right on the water. But it's a lot like the hotel in the OP, being built just a few feet above mean sea level. So it's an excellent subject to make comparison photos that show how much gets covered up when you take another telephoto from the beach surf line under the bluffs.

Twin Harbors (locals call it "the Isthmus") is good, too, and obviously larger so it's easier to see, but somehow it's not quite as impressive as the Casino. Also, the far right end of Catalina, the NW point, tapers down like a spear point right into the water. There are online images of that taken from helicopters so it's easy to get a good 3-D look at the contours of the rocks. You can't really see all the way down to the NW end of Catalina where it fades away into the ocean, from the PV bluffs, but you can from the top of the PV hilltop nearby. In Kansas they'd call that a "mountain." But this is L.A. where mountains are 8,000 ft tall! That long pointed rocky finger at the NW end can't be seen at ALL from a viewpoint at the beach surf line at PV.

 

[cloudspotter]

I spotted an opportunity to conduct a little experiment myself yesterday

This ship was off the coast , this was the view of it from crouched down near the high tide mark (cropped)

I walked inland around 230m and up around 25m according to Ordnance Survey

And this was the view from the top (cropped)

Originals attached

 

[Mick West]

I spotted an opportunity to conduct a little experiment myself yesterday

This ship was off the coast , this was the view of it from crouched down near the high tide mark (cropped)

Nice. Interestingly though, even though it looks at first glance like it's partly hidden, there's probably a lot less hidden than you think. Refraction is significantly compressing the bottom part of the ship.

Drag slider to compare. I've lined it up with the tops of the masts which will have the least refraction.
[compare]

[/compare]

 

[Mick West]

Coincidentally Iran's state run PressTV posted this fine example today (although not really a "stand-up" example, still similar
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/...udaydah-saudiled-warships-Russia-Hadi-Houthis

The view from higher up and closer

 

[Neil Obstat]

Coincidentally Iran's state run PressTV posted this fine example today (although not really a "stand-up" example, still similar
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/...udaydah-saudiled-warships-Russia-Hadi-Houthis
View attachment 33363

The view from higher up and closer
View attachment 33364

Those are interesting photos, but they appear to be two different ships, for many reasons. Where you have, "The view from higher up and closer" would therefore be a mistake. It's a view of a different ship, from a vantage point higher up and closer.

The towers don't match, the second photo showing three prominent towers and the one in the aft has a sphere top, but the first photo has only one tower in the center and no such sphere. The rectangular vents on the port side of the superstructure are entirely different (one vs. four), the profile of the forward gun is two different types of housing, the forward vertical wall of the superstructure in the first photo shows a step in the wall but the second photo shows no step at all.

Certainly since these are both approximately the same length, they could be expected to have similar heights and hull exposure, so they're comparable for purposes of overall appearance. But it would be nice to have a photo of each close up so we can compare their profiles without any distraction of waves and atmospheric conditions.

 

[Neil Obstat]

Nice. Interestingly though, even though it looks at first glance like it's partly hidden, there's probably a lot less hidden than you think. Refraction is significantly compressing the bottom part of the ship.

Drag slider to compare. I've lined it up with the tops of the masts which will have the least refraction.
[compare]
View attachment 33356
View attachment 33357
[/compare]

This comparison thingy you did here is quite remarkable, Mick. When I first slid the bar back and forth, it was obvious a great difference was going on, especially with the compressed appearance of the distant ship on the left. I would never have picked that out without your sliding comparison feature!

I would like to point out two things perhaps significant:
First, in the photo on the right, a white spray is prominent under the bow where the ship is cutting through the water, whereas there is no hint of this white water plume in the left photo, therefore that much at least of the ship's hull has been obscured by the apparent curvature of the earth from the vantage point near the high tide elevation. Secondly, while the height of the ship in the two views appears noticeably different, nonetheless, their LENGTH is precisely the SAME. Plus, since the ship is sailing laterally, it would not have moved significantly further AWAY from shore in the time it took cloudspotter to walk up the hill 230 meters. Therefore, any difference in the appearance from one view to the other must be entirely due to the elevation of the viewer and not from the distance from the viewer to the ship.

After sliding the bar, the compression/distortion becomes easy to spot in the original photos. That's surprising how one's perception changes after seeing through a fancy viewer.

Consequently, whatever is lost by having "a lot less hidden" as you say, is more than made up for, by recognizing how much effect distortion has on views of ships from greater distance over large bodies of water.

ETA: In the distance, the horizon line on the distant sea is clearly seen BEHIND the ship, appearing appearing halfway up its bow from the waterline in the second photo, whereas in the first photo the horizon line is clearly in FRONT of the ship because it covers up the lowest part of the hull where the waterline is located.

A very informative post, and thanks as well to cloudspotter, who posted this. My only request now would be if cloudspotter could provide some additional information such as date of photos, temperature of the air (approx.) and perhaps time of day (maybe an approximation of the time between photos, too?). Temp. of water would also be helpful, but who knows what the water temp would have been a mile out to sea or whatever it was. Oh, right, how far out to sea was the ship??

We already have the 230m walk and 25m climb from the topo map -- VERY NICE!

 

[cloudspotter]

A very informative post, and thanks as well to cloudspotter, who posted this. My only request now would be if cloudspotter could provide some additional information such as date of photos, temperature of the air (approx.) and perhaps time of day (maybe an approximation of the time between photos, too?). Temp. of water would also be helpful, but who knows what the water temp would have been a mile out to sea or whatever it was. Oh, right, how far out to sea was the ship??

We already have the 230m walk and 25m climb from the topo map -- VERY NICE!

Date 13/06/18
1st photo 11:33 BST
2nd photo 11:37 BST
Temp 15 C
Sea Temp 13 C
(https://earth.nullschool.net/#2018/...thographic=-0.77,55.89,3000/loc=-1.744,55.269)

No idea how far it was offshore I'm afraid

 

[Tedsson]

Those are interesting photos, but they appear to be two different ships, for many reasons. Where you have, "The view from higher up and closer" would therefore be a mistake. It's a view of a different ship, from a vantage point higher up and closer.

The towers don't match, the second photo showing three prominent towers and the one in the aft has a sphere top, but the first photo has only one tower in the center and no such sphere. The rectangular vents on the port side of the superstructure are entirely different (one vs. four), the profile of the forward gun is two different types of housing, the forward vertical wall of the superstructure in the first photo shows a step in the wall but the second photo shows no step at all.

Certainly since these are both approximately the same length, they could be expected to have similar heights and hull exposure, so they're comparable for purposes of overall appearance. But it would be nice to have a photo of each close up so we can compare their profiles without any distraction of waves and atmospheric conditions.

I was going to post this but thought it might be off topic.

They are two different ships.

The press.tv picture is likely to just be a stock image. All three RSN frigates in the Al Riyadh class have the comms mast in front of the radome. The top picture does not.

Nor is it an Al Madinah class frigate (as claimed in the article) as they are of the older style of ship design rather than the more modern slab design as shown in the bottom picture of 812 HMS Al Riyadh.

It is most likely a frigate or destroyer from a different navy, but possibly from the same French shipyard.

Notwithstanding that, the general point stands that given they are of similar design why is 75% of the hull below the waterline in the top picture. The only FE argument could be that the ship was sinking.

 

[Neil Obstat]

Notwithstanding that, the general point stands that given they are of similar design why is 75% of the hull below the waterline in the top picture?

The only FE argument could be that the ship was sinking.

One would think! I ran into one online who thinks that could be "a wave" covering part of the ship's hull. He's the same one who thinks you can "zoom in" with a P900 to make a ship "come back" that appears to be too far beyond the curvature. But somehow he's unable to provide any example where a zoom lens can make a ship "behind a wave" "come back" from "behind the wave." And he can't show any footage where "zooming in" can make the sun "come back" after sunset.

I ran into another one who said he needs a helicopter to make the sun come back after it sets. I told him if just standing up wasn't enough, why not take an elevator up about 20 floors and see if that does the trick?

 

[Neil Obstat]

Date 13/06/18
1st photo 11:33 BST
2nd photo 11:37 BST
Temp 15 C
Sea Temp 13 C
(https://earth.nullschool.net/#2018/...thographic=-0.77,55.89,3000/loc=-1.744,55.269)

No idea how far it was offshore I'm afraid

That link is amazing. It shows the air currents, right? And the tiny green circle is where you were standing?
The two photos were a mere 4 minutes apart. And the temperatures were within 2 Centigrade, about 3.6 deg.F.
So one would expect that not much refraction would be going on, but there's significant distortion in the photo taken from the beach.

One last thing -- what power telephoto was it you used? I would guess about 1000mm or 20x? Am I far off? That means you must have used a tripod down on the beach, so by "crouched down" you weren't kidding.

 

[cloudspotter]

That link is amazing. It shows the air currents, right? And the tiny green circle is where you were standing?
The two photos were a mere 4 minutes apart. And the temperatures were within 2 Centigrade, about 3.6 deg.F.
So one would expect that not much refraction would be going on, but there's significant distortion in the photo taken from the beach.

One last thing -- what power telephoto was it you used? I would guess about 1000mm or 20x? Am I far off? That means you must have used a tripod down on the beach, so by "crouched down" you weren't kidding.

That is set to show the temperature at the surface and wind and the green circle was my rough location. You can get other information from the site by clicking on 'earth' in the bottom left

The lens was a 300mm, no tripod

 

[Mick West]

And the temperatures were within 2 Centigrade, about 3.6 deg.F.
So one would expect that not much refraction would be going on, but there's significant distortion in the photo taken from the beach.

It does not take a huge difference, it just needs a relatively steep gradient. So a small difference over a small height. 2 degrees C over 100 feet is plenty to play with

 

[Mick West]

Here's one I did over the weekend.

39° 14' 21.564, -119° 56' 51.672 (incline Beach), looking west past the Crystal Bay headland (3.2 miles) to Dollar Point (8.6 miles). Jun 24, 2018 at 12:52:25 PM, 2000mm.

I was on the beach with feet at the waterline. One shot from crouching, one stood up, so about 2 feet and 6 feet above the water.

Tahoe Lake is very cold (50°F?) and the day was quite hot (80°F?).

I've aligned the photos to match the houses on the top of the Dollar Point ridge. What's most significant here is that there's not a lot of difference in what is visible, but it's just compressed (or in some cases expanded) more in the low shot.

 

[Neil Obstat]

I've aligned the photos to match the houses on the top of the Dollar Point ridge. What's most significant here is that there's not a lot of difference in what is visible, but it's just compressed (or in some cases expanded) more in the low shot.

I can see the "bigger/smaller" effect you're talking about. The orange rectangle is just below a narrow band which is about 1/2 inch tall running all the way across the photo starting 1/4 inch above the water line to 3/4 inch above. The green rectangle covers the left half of a white blotch. The top edge of the band splits that blotch in half lengthwise such that the bottom half swells bigger in the 2 feet photo and the top half shrinks smaller. Covering the top of the photo above the band and the lower part of the photo below the band allows you to see only the band that swells in the 2 feet photo.

These bands are not exact, but have wavy edges so it's hard to describe them with straight lines. Some parts are higher up on the photo and some parts are lower down. If you could draw contour lines between them the pattern would look something like camouflage. They're small zones that grow and shrink alternately - the areas that are bigger in the 2 feet photo are smaller in the 6 feet photo. The ones that are smaller in the 2 feet photo are bigger in the 6 feet photo. There's a kind of tension between them fighting for space in the photo.

There is another zone that is (generally) bigger in the 2 feet elevation photo, which runs (approximately) across the whole picture from left to right; it's a 1-inch tall (wavy) band from about 3/4 inch down from the top to (about) 1-3/4 inches down. If you hold one sheet of paper covering the top 3/4 inch of the photo and another one covering the bottom of the picture from 1-3/4 inches down from the top and lower, you can see the exposed 1 inch band swell in size for the 2 feet photo.

Another 1-inch high band starting roughly 2 inches down to around 3 inches down. I'm surprised that covering the rest of the photo is so helpful in being able to see the bands. By blocking out the distraction it's a lot easier to pay attention to the 1-inch high bands. The bands lie like layers that you're looking through sideways.

 

[Mick West]

The bands like like layers that you're looking through sideways.

They are the results of layers, but don't exactly map onto layers. It's the resultant light paths.

Here's a simulation of a 8 mile view over cold water:

The side view is showing light rays compressed x1000. They bend towards the denser air, which near the bottom means towards the water, which raises up both the horizon and the things beyond the horizon, and creates the low down compression. Then there's a bit where the cooling makes the rays bend up slightly (giving the expansion). All will just about 3°C temperature difference.

https://www.metabunk.org/mirage/ (work in progress)

 

[Trailblazer]

Date 13/06/18
1st photo 11:33 BST
2nd photo 11:37 BST
Temp 15 C
Sea Temp 13 C
(https://earth.nullschool.net/#2018/...thographic=-0.77,55.89,3000/loc=-1.744,55.269)

No idea how far it was offshore I'm afraid

If anyone has a subscription to marinetraffic.com they could probably ID the ship and get its exact location. Unfortuntately, unlike Planefinder, it doesn't do historical playback free of charge.

 

[cloudspotter]

If anyone has a subscription to marinetraffic.com they could probably ID the ship and get its exact location. Unfortuntately, unlike Planefinder, it doesn't do historical playback free of charge.

Yeah I had a look at that and found the same

 

[Robert Ross]

hello, i dont think this has been answered.

I love the Flat Earth especially the funny Memes.
It encourages people to think and thats always a good thing.

With the OPs experiments showing the curve.
Shouldnt the Ship be slightly tilted away from you ?
rather than appearing to look exactly the same as if it was much closer ?
As it goes over the curve to remain upright shouldnt it tilt ?

Shouldnt those Buildings also be kind of facing upwards slightly ?

 

[Mick West]

With the OPs experiments showing the curve.
Shouldnt the Ship be slightly tilted away from you ?
rather than appearing to look exactly the same as if it was much closer ?
As it goes over the curve to remain upright shouldnt it tilt ?

It's both. Things ARE slightly tilted away, AND they appear to look exactly the same (tilt). The reason being that they are not tilted very much. The curve of the Earth is about 1.5° every 100 miles. So something 10 miles away will only be tilted away by 0.15 degrees. This is too small to make a visible difference.

 

[JFDee]

So something 10 miles away will only be tilted away by 0.15 degrees.

In addition, the tilt always makes it lean away from you, the observer.

So even if you were able to notice such a weak tilt between two buildings when looking "from the side" (perpendicular to the tilt direction), this is virtually impossible when looking in the direction of the tilt.

Look at the famous leaning tower of Pisa from the direction where it is leaning away from you and it will appear straight.

 

[Mick West]

I've incorporated the boat and the hotel from the OP into the Malibu preset for the refraction simulator. You can adjust the viewer height slider from 2 feet to 6 feet to observe the effect

 

[Crazy John]

I'm generally a lurker, but I've got a good viewpoint onto the Forth road and rail bridges from my home town in Scotland, and was inspired to have a go at this from the top and bottom of the sea defenses. My scope, a bresser refractor, was mounted on a tripod at 1.5 meters above sea level at the bottom, and 1.5 meters above the path running along the defenses at the top. It's about 13 km from the viewpoint to the rail bridge, and about 14 km to the headland behind. The position of the viewpoint is 56.020250 lat, -3.593788 long. The images were taken between high tide and about 90 minutes after.

Here's the viewpoint, the orange wind shelter is about 3m tall for scale:

Here's a low magnification context shot:

Here's the rail bridge pillar as viewed from the top...

...and the bottom:

The road bridge pillar and headland behind from the top:

...and from the bottom:

Any good? It was about 17 degree celcius, and I've seen mirages trying to get this view before, like this one:

Please excuse the angle, I was still learning to use the system. Edit: I should also mention that left and right are swapped in the high magnification images, which is a normal effect of a refracting telescope. And, having made a series of these observations over the course of two years (I have been fascinated by FE claims about the horizon, since that seemed such a stupidly easy thing to check), I can confirm that the amount of lost height on the pillars and headlands is consistent as long as you observe at the same point in the tide cycle - the tides around here can be between 4 meters and 5 meters total low-to-high tide difference. If anyone goes to replicate this observation I very strongly advise doing so around high tide, because at low tide the river is bordered by mudflats which are extremely dangerous to walk on.

 

[Trailblazer]

Excuse the poor quality photos (maximum zoom on an iPhone) but here are a couple of pics that demonstrate this effect which I took in Iceland. Here the difference was not even standing up, but simply raising the phone above my head while I sat in a hot pool on the beach!

Holding camera low:

And high:

These are actually frames from a short video, but it's very wobbly as I didn't take the time to do a proper experiment.

There's clearly a lot of refraction here, but even just two or three feet of extra height is enough to bring some islands that were completely hidden into view.

 

[Don Gisselbeck]

Monday's transit of Mercury will provide an opportunity to independently estimate the size of the solar system using timing and photos from different locations.

 

[Jesse3959]

Yeah, it's close to a cold surface, so there's probably refraction curving the beam down.

Long distance laser experiments are generally pointless. The beam is widely diverged after a few miles, and there are multiple paths it can take from laser to camera.

If you have a frozen lake then repeat the Wallace experiment, it eliminates refraction errors.

I'm skeptical of frozen lakes because they may be draining faster than they are filling when their water supplies freeze up, and a frozen lake might actually go truly flat or even concave.

 

[Mick West]

a frozen lake might actually go truly flat or even concave.

Why would it do that? A frozen lake starts out with the same curvature as a non-frozen lake. If the liquid water under the ice drains, then the ice is just going to lower. You're not going to have a miles wide flexible diaphragm of ice - it's still going to almost entirely be floating on the liquid water, maintaining the same slight curve, just lower.

Perhaps you could draw a diagram of what you envisage happening?

 

[Trailspotter]

A frozen lake starts out with the same curvature as a non-frozen lake. If the liquid water under the ice drains, then the ice is just going to lower. You're not going to have a miles wide flexible diaphragm of ice - it's still going to almost entirely be floating on the liquid water, maintaining the same slight curve, just lower.

An orthogonal thought - the ice sheet on a lake surface is unlikely to have a uniform thickness.

 

[Jesse3959]

Why would it do that? A frozen lake starts out with the same curvature as a non-frozen lake. If the liquid water under the ice drains, then the ice is just going to lower. You're not going to have a miles wide flexible diaphragm of ice - it's still going to almost entirely be floating on the liquid water, maintaining the same slight curve, just lower.

Perhaps you could draw a diagram of what you envisage happening?

I gotta run at the moment, maybe I can draw a diagram later.

But I envision that as the lake freezes, the shallow parts near the shore may freeze solid all the way down to the ground. That part won't settle. And that's probably the part the observers are standing on. Further out, where it's still liquid under the ice, it would certainly maintain the curve, however if the lake were to drain some, that would lower, forcing the ice to bend* or crack and refreeze allowing the surface to go down.
(*Ice under enough pressure melts just long enough to relieve the pressure, and thus could almost be said to bend.)

Under extended freezing conditions, the lake could continue to freeze solid to the ground further and further from the shore as the remaining liquid level went further and further down, and some sort of concavity is possible.

For an example of ice changing shape due to great forces, see this video from Alaska:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5UqOJ0gwDE

(After they get done throwing stones on the lake, they stop and just listen to the lake, and it's making really cool sounds.)

 

[Mick West]

An orthogonal thought - the ice sheet on a lake surface is unlikely to have a uniform thickness.

Theoretically, I think, that would make the thicker ice higher than the thinner ice, as it's buoyant, and so would have a percentage of its thickness above the water level.

The advantage of a frozen lake is that you can walk on it, maybe even drive some suitable vehicle. So it gives you lots of opportunities to (relatively) easily do the Wallace experiment - compared to having to find a suitable land mid-point for a non-frozen lake.

The uncertainty regarding the height of the ice above water level is an issue. But you could fix that by drilling through the ice - something that is commonly done with ice fishing with a $50 hand auger.

It only takes a minute or so and will then give you a lake-wide version of the classic tube and pipes water level.

Set up your Wallace experiment using the water level in the holes. Done.

 

[Mick West]

But I envision that as the lake freezes, the shallow parts near the shore may freeze solid all the way down to the ground. That part won't settle. And that's probably the part the observers are standing on

I wasn't suggesting some kind of horizon obscuration experiment though - you would still have refraction issues with that. I was suggesting the Wallace experiment.

 

[mmixLinus]

Hi! A while ago I was thinking about what the simplest possible way to observe the curvature of the Earth would be. So this summer I took some footage of a lake and eventually - it took forever - made this video. I didn't know about metabunk.org then, but found out while editting, so there is a shoutout to Mick at the end, because the method is basically the title of this thread : D

The premise of the video is that Zeteticists et al often say that if you can't see it with your own eyes, it can't be believed. So that's what I wanted to do: show a simple way of seeing it with your own eyes, no tools necessary.

Video Description: Specifically, globe-deniers normally claim that you can't actually see Earth surface curvature with the unaided eye (as in, "it all looks flat to me"). In this video I demonstrate that the curved surface between the viewer and the horizon can be observed, not only due to obstruction by the horizon, but it is also observed by the varying distance to the horizon. This can be seen with the unaided eye, as long as the viewpoint is very close to the water surface. The evidence starts at 2:37. Before 2:37 is a short demonstration of how the distance to the horizon is calculated with Pythagoras' Theorem, after which follows a view over calm waters and varying, but low, altitude. An island is partially obscured at lower heights, and the distance to the horizon can be seen to change.


Source: https://youtu.be/E5CGfUrdDlo

 

[Bobby Shafto]

View attachment 26542

Hey Mick,
This graphic was featured in a recent YouTube debate. I Google traced it to here and it looks like you may have been the photographer.

The coordinates are to the shoreline in Santa Monica. Is that Catalina in the background?

 

[Mick West]

Hey Mick,
This graphic was featured in a recent YouTube debate. I Google traced it to here and it looks like you may have been the photographer.

The coordinates are to the shoreline in Santa Monica. Is that Catalina in the background?

It's Malibu in the background.

 

[Bobby Shafto]

It's Malibu in the background.

Are you sure that was in the direction of Malibu? Because I'm having a hard time finding a terrain profile that matches and lines up at the right vertical angle with the sailboat mast.

However, if I look from that spot toward Black Jack Mtn on Catalina Island, 2000 ft at about 43 miles "works." There's also what appears to be an antenna mast on that peak to the left of the boat mast in the first picture, which could correlate to the antenna on Black Jack.

Nobody's challenging the photo or data as far as I know. I'm just trying to get my ducks in a row should I find myself in a discussion with a particular flat earther.