Supermoon by Latitude

JagLevak

New Member
With the many photos posted around the world of the recent rising supermoon it was pretty easy to see the effect of latitude on the seeming 'tilt' of the moon.

Sydney Australia:
Moonrise_001_Sydney Australia.jpg

Southern Brazil:
Moonrise_002_Southern Brazil.jpg

Mumbai India:
Moonrise_003_Mumbai_India.jpg

Israel:
Moonrise_004_Israel.jpg

New York:
Moonrise_006_New_York.jpg

St. Petersburg:Moonrise_007_St Petersburg.jpg

(I wasn't able to find images from further north or south.)

I don't see this lunar 'tilt' effect mentioned much. Has anyone seen a flat-Earth attempt to explain this?
 
I wasn't able to find images from further north or south.)
I did a search on Getty Images, here's Toronto: https://www.gettyimages.in/detail/n...ower-on-june-15-2022-in-news-photo/1403079082
gettyimages-1403079082-2048x2048.jpg

I don't see this lunar 'tilt' effect mentioned much. Has anyone seen a flat-Earth attempt to explain this?
Yes. But.

Phulet word did it once, comparing Phuket and London, but taking the picture at different times and seeing no difference.

Generally speaking, you can't distinguish Flat Earth and the globe by this tilt using a qualitative argument, i.e. without exact measurements and geometry, so you'll be unable to appeal to most people. To understand this, move to a room with a smoke detector and observe its changing tilt as you move along one wall (from North to South).

I've never seen a FEer explain why the sun rises and sets in the Southeast/Southwest in Australia in December. They have a very hard time explaining star field rotation in the Southern hemisphere. They can't explain why the moon shows almost the same face (libration!) everywhere on Earth, yet is perfectly round in every picture (unlike the smoke detector).

There are so many "impossible" things going on in the sky that FEers who think about this need to conclude that what they see above their heads is not real. Which is a belief that doesn't really impact most people's daily and professional lives, so...

Compare:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/the-moon-tilt-terminator-illusions.8165/post-195861
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/fl...king-by-the-moons-appearance.7358/post-180651
 
here's Toronto

Much thanks for the Toronto image. It's a pretty one, though perhaps not a fit for this particular collection. I tried to find images that were clearly labeled moonrise, and for northern and southern latitudes, I was looking for lunar images that were right on the horizon. (I broke the rule for Mumbai because I could find hardly any equatorial images, and I figured close to the equator would not rotate the moon much as it moved off the horizon, unlike far north and south latitudes.) Fortunately, I think St. Petersburg is further north than Toronto, so I think I've got that latitude covered. (New York should be close enough.)

Generally speaking, you can't distinguish Flat Earth and the globe by this tilt using a qualitative argument, i.e. without exact measurements and geometry, so you'll be unable to appeal to most people.

Really? So you think most people wouldn't be able to figure out the apparent tilt of the moon on the horizon actually meant it was the horizon that was tilting--even without exact geometry? I thought the cool thing about this effect would be the obviousness of it. Perhaps I was being too optimistic.

To understand this, move to a room with a smoke detector and observe its changing tilt as you move along one wall (from North to South).

Took me a bit to realize this is probably a reference to a ceiling-mounted smoke detector. I've only had wall-mounted units (which would be the more natural analog to a moon on the horizon). But on a wall unit, the bottom stays stubbornly the bottom.

Thanks also for the links to the other threads. My keyword searches had pulled up the Moon terminator thread but that was kind-of a different topic. The other thread is much more what I was looking for, but apparently I was not using the right words to find it. And again, I can see how that kind-of works for an overhead moon, but not a moon right on the horizon.

So some flat-Earthers also believe in a flat disk moon? I did not know about this. Surely in the 150+ years that we've had stereoscopes, someone must have used the librations of the moon to produce a stereographic image. Seems like that ought to be a pretty clear and obvious demonstration. Or is that too much optimism also?
 
Some Flat Earthers long ago decided that problems such as Sun path, Solar eclipses, the appearance of the Moon, the two celestial poles problem, etc., are non-problems. Geometry was abandoned in favor of a personal viewpoint.

What does that mean? Everyone has a personal view of the Earth and the sky. This personal viewpoint doesn't have to geometrically match with those of other people. It's a kind of God driven virtual reality.

Others think the atmosphere plays tricks on the appearance and positions of celestial bodies through extreme refraction. Or it's The Dome that does the same.

Others think that celestial bodies are not solid but have a mysterious nature that doesn't have to obey petty Earthly laws such as geometry. It's all very vague.

Many others are still protected from the geometry problem through not understanding geometry.

There is also motivated thinking... which is situational. An instructive example:

"Crrow777" - I can't remember his real name - is not a Flat Earther. But he has many eccentric ideas about the Moon - a hologram? -a solid alien construct that's covered with a physical screen like a CRT to hide its true nature? And many other eccentric ideas. Which makes him sort of okay with Flat Earthers since he's a fellow outside of the NASA box explorer. Wrong but a good guy.

Richard Hopkins - Mr. Thrive & Survive - once gently chided Crrow777 about the size of the Earth. Crrow777 thinks it's a sphere, but much bigger than "NASA" insists. Hopkins was in the Navy and was deployed at sea as an Aerographer's Mate.

Hopkins cited his experience at sea and said that he, and the Navy, and others, would know if the Earth were too big because the distances and times of voyages wouldn't match. He said this very calmly and matter-of-factly. It's obvious. But he has never once thought about what that would mean for Flat Earth? Yeah, human psychology is weird.
 
Last edited:
Really? So you think most people wouldn't be able to figure out the apparent tilt of the moon on the horizon actually meant it was the horizon that was tilting--even without exact geometry? I thought the cool thing about this effect would be the obviousness of it. Perhaps I was being too optimistic.

I think so. It's definitely not obvious to me and I used to do quite a few flat earth debunks. :D
 
But he has never once thought about what that would mean for Flat Earth? Yeah, human psychology is weird.
So I take it Hopkins is a Flat-Earther. Along those lines, one of my favorite attempted debunks of Flat-Earthism had this to say:

"Lunar eclipses remain the best method that most people can see for themselves that the earth is a sphere. It’s remarkable that flat-earthers don’t have much to say about lunar eclipses. They can’t deny that something happens during a lunar eclipse, but they seem to have no curiosity about what is going on. I find that to be very strange. In an informal internet discussion with some flat-earthers, I found that very few of them even bothered to watch this eclipse. That’s a pity, because it was a beautiful and wonderful thing to see. And the origin of lunar eclipses is a mystery to flat-earthers. Most people are attracted to mysteries because, well, they’re mysterious. But, apparently flat-earthers are not. It’s almost as if they are afraid of the truth."

--which was the summary conclusion from the article here:

https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/moon/january-total-lunar-eclipse-and-flat-earth

That's right. Answers in effing Genesis. The Young-Earth-Creationist website.
 
"The origin of lunar eclipses is a mystery to flat-earthers. Most people are attracted to mysteries because, well, they’re mysterious. But, apparently flat-earthers are not. It’s almost as if they are afraid of the truth."

The Flat Earth Society have at least two explanations for lunar eclipses:

1. A Lunar Eclipse occurs on an occasion when the Moon is on the opposite side of the ecliptic from the Sun and its diurnal circular path temporarily wanders "out of bounds," beyond the vertical rays of the Sun.

2. A Lunar Eclipse occurs when a satellite of the sun passes between the sun and moon.

https://wiki.tfes.org/Lunar_Eclipse_due_to_Electromagnetic_Acceleration
https://wiki.tfes.org/Lunar_Eclipse_due_to_Shadow_Object
 
Back
Top