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Author Topic: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away  (Read 7585 times)

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Offline Gray2023

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Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
« on: September 04, 2024, 02:25:13 PM »
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    • After reading and pondering for awhile, I was wondering why at sunset the sun is magnified, but the same would not apply to a mountain in the distance.  It seems like an inconsistent thought process.

    I can look at the sun on the edge of the horizon and it looks bigger to me than when it is straight overhead. FE people say it is because the sun is magnified by the atmosphere. The atmosphere makes the sun cooler and easier to look at.

    Now lets take the picture in the World Records book that was of a mountain 273 miles away.  Could the same magnification help us see a mountain that we can't normally see?  

    Do we really understand what atmosphere does over long distances?

    Just something for others to ponder as well.  I haven't made any decisive conclusions.
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    Offline Quo vadis Domine

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #1 on: September 04, 2024, 02:53:39 PM »
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    • Quote from: Gray2023 on September 04, 2024, 02:25:13 PM
    After reading and pondering for awhile, I was wondering why at sunset the sun is magnified, but the same would not apply to a mountain in the distance.  It seems like an inconsistent thought process.

    I can look at the sun on the edge of the horizon and it looks bigger to me than when it is straight overhead. FE people say it is because the sun is magnified by the atmosphere. The atmosphere makes the sun cooler and easier to look at.

    Now lets take the picture in the World Records book that was of a mountain 273 miles away.  Could the same magnification help us see a mountain that we can't normally see? 

    Do we really understand what atmosphere does over long distances?

    Just something for others to ponder as well.  I haven't made any decisive conclusions.


    The conventional explanation is that when the Sun is in the sky there is nothing near it to measure it’s size by, but when it rises or sets on the horizon it has mountains, trees, water, and buildings that are nearby thus it looks bigger. It’s an optical illusion basically.
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    Offline Ladislaus

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #2 on: September 04, 2024, 03:00:01 PM »
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    • Quote from: Gray2023 on September 04, 2024, 02:25:13 PM
    After reading and pondering for awhile, I was wondering why at sunset the sun is magnified, but the same would not apply to a mountain in the distance.  

    Who says it isn't or wouldn't be?  Difference is that the mountain isn't moving so you can't observe a "change" in size.
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    Offline Ladislaus

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #3 on: September 04, 2024, 03:01:57 PM »
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    • Quote from: Gray2023 on September 04, 2024, 02:25:13 PM
    Now lets take the picture in the World Records book that was of a mountain 273 miles away.  Could the same magnification help us see a mountain that we can't normally see? 

    Magnification by itself wouldn't suffice to explain why we can see it, since the core problem is that it should be hidden behind/around earth curvature.  You would need some mechanism to bend the light around the curve, a mechanism most commonly stated to be refraction.  You also wouldn't really need the atmosphere's magnification, since you could use some magnifying optics ... telescope, binoculars, camera zoom, etc.
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    Offline Gray2023

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #4 on: September 04, 2024, 03:02:57 PM »
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    • Quote from: Quo vadis Domine on September 04, 2024, 02:53:39 PM

    The conventional explanation is that when the Sun is in the sky there is nothing near it to measure it’s size by, but when it rises or sets on the horizon it has mountains, trees, water, and buildings that are nearby thus it looks bigger. It’s an optical illusion basically.
    But we can measure it against planes or birds in the air.  Maybe I will have to take a picture of the birds and sun when over my head and another at sunset to see if there is any difference.
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    Fatti Maschii, Parole Femine

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #5 on: September 04, 2024, 03:06:42 PM »
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    • Quote from: Gray2023 on September 04, 2024, 02:25:13 PM
    why at sunset the sun is magnified
    .

    This is an optical illusion. If you hold a penny at arm's length, it will just about cover the moon when it is full and overhead (better to do this experiment with the moon than with the sun :laugh1:), and do the same thing with a full moon when it is near the horizon, the coin will cover exactly the same amount of the moon.

    No one really knows why this illusion takes place.
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    Offline Gray2023

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #6 on: September 04, 2024, 03:15:46 PM »
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    • Quote from: Ladislaus on September 04, 2024, 03:01:57 PM
    Magnification by itself wouldn't suffice to explain why we can see it, since the core problem is that it should be hidden behind/around earth curvature.  You would need some mechanism to bend the light around the curve, a mechanism most commonly stated to be refraction.  You also wouldn't really need the atmosphere's magnification, since you could use some magnifying optics ... telescope, binoculars, camera zoom, etc.
    So my husband and I were talking about this particular picture.  And if we calculated it right that mountain top should be 3000+ feet below the curve.  Could refraction and magnification make light bend that much?

    Reading up on that picture we found that many variables had to be perfect to get that picture?  Why can't that picture be taken every day, no matter what the circuмstance is?

    This is why the "see to far" problems bother me.  I can't make them work on a sphere or on a flat plane. 

    Both have holes I can't reconcile.
    1) Sphere:  How do we see something that should be hidden by 3000 feet?  (I want to be able to do the refraction math, but don't have the education)
    2) Flat:  How come we can't take this picture every day? (We should be able to recreate this picture over and over and over again.)
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    Fatti Maschii, Parole Femine

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #7 on: September 04, 2024, 03:44:43 PM »
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    • Quote from: Gray2023 on September 04, 2024, 02:25:13 PM
    Now lets take the picture in the World Records book that was of a mountain 273 miles away.  Could the same magnification help us see a mountain that we can't normally see? 
    .

    Flat Earth theory tells us that the reason we can't see mountains at great distances is due to haze or dust in the atmosphere. If this were true, it would never be possible to see a mountain through 273 miles of dust.

    But it does work on the globe earth, where the reason distant mountains are invisible is because they are hidden behind the curvature of the earth. But light is refracted by the differences in temperature between the surface of the earth and the higher elevations, which are colder than the ground. The colder air at higher temperatures refracts the image back towards the ground, so that something can be seen at greater distances than the curvature of the earth would otherwise allow.

    This explains why a mountain can sometimes be seen at a couple of hundred miles but not always. It's because sometimes the temperatures at different elevations are just right for the refraction to take place. Temperature is something that varies greatly from one day to the next, and depending on the time of day. But the amount of dust in the air is something that doesn't change nearly so much, so it doesn't make sense to say that the photographer just happened to be at that particular spot when a mysterious tunnel of pure, dust-free air opened up through nearly 300 miles of air in a direct line between him and the mountain he photographed, and he snapped the picture.
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    Offline Matthew

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #8 on: September 04, 2024, 03:56:15 PM »
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    • Not the "refraction faeries" again! Those magical beings who erase the bulge of the globe earth (as with an eraser), leaving everything else completely alone.

    These alleged "mirages" are always perfect visual representations of the far away city skyline, mountain, etc. -- Never flipped, wavy, stretched, or in any way distorted.

    "refraction" is a huge lame excuse (and cope) by Globers that doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny.
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    Offline Gray2023

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #9 on: September 04, 2024, 04:17:17 PM »
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    • Quote from: Matthew on September 04, 2024, 03:56:15 PM
    Not the "refraction faeries" again! Those magical beings who erase the bulge of the globe earth (as with an eraser), leaving everything else completely alone.

    These alleged "mirages" are always perfect visual representations of the far away city skyline, mountain, etc. -- Never flipped, wavy, stretched, or in any way distorted.

    "refraction" is a huge lame excuse (and cope) by Globers that doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny.
    This is frustrating. I don't even know how to respond.  This is the type of post that makes people emotional and then begin to respond poorly.
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    Fatti Maschii, Parole Femine

    Offline Pax Vobis

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #10 on: September 04, 2024, 04:31:07 PM »
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    • Quote
    The colder air at higher temperatures refracts the image back towards the ground, so that something can be seen at greater distances than the curvature of the earth would otherwise allow.
    :laugh1:  If the image is refracted back towards the ground, then it would still be hidden by the curve.
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    Offline Giovanni Berto

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #11 on: September 04, 2024, 04:41:23 PM »
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    • There were lasers tests conducted that seem to destroy the refraction theory.

    I am not an expert, but I think that refraction does not work for all rays. I believe that it works only, or mostly, on the rays that are on the visible spectrum.
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    Online Yeti

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #12 on: September 04, 2024, 04:52:40 PM »
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    • Hmm, I'm not sure what to make of this, but it looks like it wasn't refracted after all. This is from the Guinness Book of World Records website (which frustratingly doesn't have a copy of the photo in question, but):


    Quote
    The longest line of sight on earth photographed is 443 km (275 miles), achieved by Mark Bret Gumá (Spain), from Pic de Finestrelles, Spain, to Pic Gaspard, France, on 13 July 2016.
    The photograph was taken using a Panasonic Lumix FZ72, following lengthy preparations in selecting the optimal date and location. The image was captured when the sun was rising behind Tête de Chabrières and Puy de la Sèche, to help increase the visibility of this peaks on the horizon.
    The picture was taken from Pic de Finestrelles, in the Pyrenees mountains. Pic Gaspard, of the Alps, can be seen in the centre of the photo, 443 km away.
    There are very few places on earth where it is possible to extend the line of sight so far. Due to the curvature of earth, both the observer and object must be at sufficiently high altitudes for the object to be visible at long range. The higher an observer is, the further they may see before the point where the earth curves out of sight, otherwise known as the horizon. If the earth had a uniform radius with no mountains and valleys, an individual six feet in height would view the horizon to be 5 km away from them.


    So from the description it sounds like this is a very rare place on earth where it is possible to stand on one very high peak, and photograph another very high peak at a great distance, which is high enough to be in direct line of sight.
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    Offline Gray2023

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #13 on: September 04, 2024, 04:59:41 PM »
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    • Quote from: Giovanni Berto on September 04, 2024, 04:41:23 PM
    There were lasers tests conducted that seem to destroy the refraction theory.

    I am not an expert, but I think that refraction does not work for all rays. I believe that it works only, or mostly, on the rays that are on the visible spectrum.
    Do you have a link to a particular laser test?
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    Fatti Maschii, Parole Femine

    Offline Giovanni Berto

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    Re: Sun at sunset vs mountain miles away
    « Reply #14 on: September 04, 2024, 05:36:25 PM »
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    • Quote from: Gray2023 on September 04, 2024, 04:59:41 PM
    Do you have a link to a particular laser test?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igoizIP7f-g

    At the 16 minute mark.

    The whole docuмentary might be of your interest, by the way.
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