The Flat Earth Society

Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Debate => Topic started by: Timeisup on January 19, 2021, 01:12:35 AM

Title: The Night Sky Revisited
Post by: Timeisup on January 19, 2021, 01:12:35 AM
One of the mantras of the FE believers is ‘ seeing is believing’, which at times can be reasonable advice.
Consider this; If a thousand observers were to position themselves along a line of longitude  all equally spaced and take images of the night sky, during their respective hours of darkness. If the images were then used to produce a short 40 second animation what would the resulting animation show? Could this same animation be produced  on both a spherical and flat earth or would it be observable proof of a spherical earth?
While such an experiment could conceivably be done it can however be carried out by creating a simulation.
https://stellarium-web.org/
The question is would FE advocates take this evidence as proof of a spherical earth or would they dismiss it and claim such an animation could be replicated if the earth were flat.
Title: Re: The Night Sky Revisited
Post by: Timeisup on January 20, 2021, 12:05:22 AM
Has the fact that no FE advocate responded significant? It does appear odd as this experiment would fit quite well into their preferred zetetic way of thinking, knowledge through direct observation. The Open University have some nice images showing images from near both poles and the equator. It’s no stretch of the imagination to fill in the gaps.
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=69107&section=3.11

I find it odd that some flat earthers prefer to debate more nebulous concepts such as gravity which in reality is extremely difficult if not impossible for them to gain insights into that are different from main stream science given all the resources currently deployed such as LIGO.
Title: Re: The Night Sky Revisited
Post by: faded mike on January 20, 2021, 05:47:50 PM
One of the mantras of the FE believers is ‘ seeing is believing’, which at times can be reasonable advice.
Consider this; If a thousand observers were to position themselves along a line of longitude  all equally spaced and take images of the night sky, during their respective hours of darkness. If the images were then used to produce a short 40 second animation what would the resulting animation show? Could this same animation be produced  on both a spherical and flat earth or would it be observable proof of a spherical earth?
While such an experiment could conceivably be done it can however be carried out by creating a simulation.
https://stellarium-web.org/
The question is would FE advocates take this evidence as proof of a spherical earth or would they dismiss it and claim such an animation could be replicated if the earth were flat.
Could this be evidence of a spherical sky? Afterall - one of MY big kicks is that our scientific progress isn't really helping us - the ancients said the sky was spherical, some one did anyway.(some group{s})

The Egyptians showed a guy/people with a thing.
Title: Re: The Night Sky Revisited
Post by: faded mike on January 20, 2021, 05:51:11 PM
But i reserve the fact that this may not show what you'd expect to see, either. Not to mention a straight north and south line on the map may not be the reality. May not be a straight north south line in real life. I think Danang may have evidence of this.
Title: Re: The Night Sky Revisited
Post by: Stash on January 20, 2021, 06:14:22 PM
One of the mantras of the FE believers is ‘ seeing is believing’, which at times can be reasonable advice.
Consider this; If a thousand observers were to position themselves along a line of longitude  all equally spaced and take images of the night sky, during their respective hours of darkness. If the images were then used to produce a short 40 second animation what would the resulting animation show? Could this same animation be produced  on both a spherical and flat earth or would it be observable proof of a spherical earth?
While such an experiment could conceivably be done it can however be carried out by creating a simulation.
https://stellarium-web.org/
The question is would FE advocates take this evidence as proof of a spherical earth or would they dismiss it and claim such an animation could be replicated if the earth were flat.
Could this be evidence of a spherical sky? Afterall - one of MY big kicks is that our scientific progress isn't really helping us - the ancients said the sky was spherical, some one did anyway.(some group{s})

The Egyptians showed a guy/people with a thing.

scientific progress isn't really helping us? Seriously? Would you prefer to live in a world where all of technology was 2000 years old?
Title: Re: The Night Sky Revisited
Post by: JackBlack on January 21, 2021, 03:03:57 AM
Could this be evidence of a spherical sky? Afterall - one of MY big kicks is that our scientific progress isn't really helping us - the ancients said the sky was spherical, some one did anyway.
The spherical sky of the ancients is the celestial sphere of modern cosmology.

There are 2 main distinction between it then and now:
First, in the time of the ancients, they couldn't measure parallax and thus had no way to tell how far away stars were, and had no idea what they were made of. With that, they may as well just be points on a sphere.
The other is that we understand the motion of the planets, so they aren't just wanderers, wandering on the surface of the sphere as they ancients had.

Scientific progress has helped us move away from the limited understanding of the ancients and now we have a much better understanding.

But for all bar the most accurate measurements, if you want to measure the stars, you can treat the sky as a sphere of infinite radius.
Title: Re: The Night Sky Revisited
Post by: Unconvinced on January 22, 2021, 06:07:00 AM
I think Danang may have evidence of this.

Haha!

You should really think about exercising some quality control.
Title: Re: The Night Sky Revisited
Post by: Timeisup on January 23, 2021, 12:31:38 AM
What the ‘ancients’ knew about the true nature about the night sky was next to nothing. Sure they mapped and named the constellations but knew nothing about their true nature. Let’s remember all they had was their naked eyes. They had scant knowledge of their own planet but even so they still had enough in the way of know how to determine the earth was a sphere.
While these early astronomers were every bit as smart as astronomers of today they lacked the means to make any real discoveries other than those through very careful naked eyed observations. Despite the lack of equipment what they did accomplish
Through simple observation was remarkable:-

Indian mathematician-astronomer Aryabhata, in his Aryabhatiya first identifies the force gravity to explain why objects do not fall when the Earth rotates,[6] propounds a geocentric Solar System of gravitation, and an eccentric elliptical model of the planets, where the planets spin on their axis and follow elliptical orbits, the Sun and the Moon revolve around the Earth in epicycles. He also writes that the planets and the Moon do not have their own light but reflect the light of the Sun and that the Earth rotates on its axis causing day and night and also that the Sun rotates around the Earth causing years.

They with there very limited resources were able to get some things right which was later verified using more sophisticated methods.

Likewise a relatively simple observation of the moon along a line of longitude will point to the earth being a sphere. A fact that has been confirmed by other more sophisticated observations.

It’s worth noting the timeline that charts significant astronomical discoveries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_astronomy