I'd never seen this before

nice catch re my typo -- but it would have to be a an interesting
tower to be seen from 75 miles with unaided vision. You'd have trouble
resolving an ordinary building at that range

On Jan 1, 8:37 pm, WingFlaps wrote:
On Jan 2, 11:19 am, Mxsmanic wrote:

Tina writes:
Gee, wrong again. I haven't run the numbers, there may be a line of
sight, but the only way a human pilot would see a tower top under
these conditions is at night if it had a bright flashing light on top
of it. Real eyeballs in the daytime would not be able to see it, even
if it was in the line of sight.

An object 1000 feet in size would be visible from about 1100 nm away, under
ideal conditions. A flashing light could be visible from any distance,
depending on its brightness. I _did_ run the numbers.

Nonsense. If the observer were at 1000' the top of a 1000' tower would
be visible ~75 miles away. A flashing light would not be visible from
"any distance". Think about it -what if it were on the other side of
the planet!

Cheers MC

Tina writes:

You can be fairly sure he used someone else's equations for line of
sight. I'd bet a significant sum he could not derive them himself. He
and Euclid would not have gotten along.

It's just simple trig. In fact, it's just solving for different sides of a
right triangle, as should be obvious from the description I gave.

prove it.
show your work

On Jan 1, 8:53 pm, Mxsmanic wrote:
Tina writes:
You can be fairly sure he used someone else's equations for line of
sight. I'd bet a significant sum he could not derive them himself. He
and Euclid would not have gotten along.

It's just simple trig. In fact, it's just solving for different sides of a
right triangle, as should be obvious from the description I gave.

Mxsmanic wrote:
Ron Wanttaja writes:

The International Space Station *isn't* in outer space? Better tell NASA....

They already know, since they have to boost it periodically in order to
compensate for drag from the atmosphere.

Correct answer to the wrong question.

The International Space Station orbits at about 400 km; the official
definition of outer space is 100 km.


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

Yeah, maybe an object 1000 feet in diameter but not a tower 1000 feet
tall and 3 to 6 feet wide dipwad.

There are few thousand-foot towers that are only a metre wide.

Not at the bottom, but there are few towers that are more than a meter
or so wide at the top, which is the part one would see at a distance
dipwad.

Also towers are not solid, they are a skeleton frame work, so what
you have to see at a distance is tubing on the order of a couple
of inches in diameter.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

Mxsmanic wrote:
Tina writes:

You can be fairly sure he used someone else's equations for line of
sight. I'd bet a significant sum he could not derive them himself. He
and Euclid would not have gotten along.

It's just simple trig. In fact, it's just solving for different sides of a
right triangle, as should be obvious from the description I gave.

Wrong; the optical line of sight is different than the geometric line of
sight because the atmosphere bends light.


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Tina writes:

You can be fairly sure he used someone else's equations for line of
sight. I'd bet a significant sum he could not derive them himself. He
and Euclid would not have gotten along.

It's just simple trig. In fact, it's just solving for different sides
of a right triangle, as should be obvious from the description I gave.


Nope


Bertie

On Wed, 02 Jan 2008 02:52:09 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote:

Ron Wanttaja writes:

The International Space Station *isn't* in outer space? Better tell NASA....

They already know, since they have to boost it periodically in order to
compensate for drag from the atmosphere.

Hay-el, if you use that as a criteria, the Shuttle doesn't go into outer space,
either. You get measurable atmospheric drag out to 1000 km or more. The
internationally-agreed boundary for space starts is at 100 km.

Ron Wanttaja

Mxsmanic wrote in
news
writes:

Yeah, maybe an object 1000 feet in diameter but not a tower 1000 feet
tall and 3 to 6 feet wide dipwad.

There are few thousand-foot towers that are only a metre wide.


Wrong again.



Bertie

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Tina writes:

Gee, wrong again. I haven't run the numbers, there may be a line of
sight, but the only way a human pilot would see a tower top under
these conditions is at night if it had a bright flashing light on top
of it. Real eyeballs in the daytime would not be able to see it, even
if it was in the line of sight.

An object 1000 feet in size would be visible from about 1100 nm away,
under ideal conditions. A flashing light could be visible from any
distance, depending on its brightness. I _did_ run the numbers.


Nope, you're an idiot


Bertie