In the 28xMagnification picture, whole buildings appear, as well as part of the coastline, which are wholly absent from the x8 photo. I wish we had a plain picture with no magnification, but I am happy, indeed, that you were willing to provide what you did.
According to globularism these objects are hiding behind a hill of water. Yet as this experiment clearly shows (again), restoration of the image is possible by viewing through a telescope.
Before we introduce the bugaboo of refraction, you took these pictures at roughly the same time and location. If there was to be refraction in the pictures, this would be evident in both images. The light would take the same path from shore to eye regardless of magnification. If the buildings were behind a hill of water at 8xmagnification, they should be behind the hill of water at 28xmagnification as well.
This is confirmation of what Tom and I have been trying to tell people for years, only to be shouted down as quackery by the uninterested masses. I hope people will take an honest look at the results, and give this experiment (and their beliefs to rotundity) the attention it deserves.
I appreciate your reasoned response, however refraction does indeed account for this, but in the form of an inferior mirage (as I mentioned in my OP). Notice in the images (I have used your crops, thank you) I have drawn a white line through the point where the actual image is mirrored by the mirage. Also, I must embarassingly admit that I made in error my original post; the telescopic images (28x) were taken at about 1-1.5metres above sea level, not actually at sea level. (I have corrected the original post to reflect this).
The refracted image, along with the fact that slightly more of the view is visible in the telescopic shots, is consistant with my findings. See below for images with white lines drawn through the fold line of the refraction. When you consider that what appears to be a missing building is in fact simply an upside down mirror image obscuring the waterline. The black line on the second image shows the height of the white line on the first image ie: the black line representing the 0m view, and white line representing the 1.5m view
0m 8x
Inferior Mirage by
max_wedge, on Flickr
1.5m 28x
Inferior Mirage by
max_wedge, on Flickr
Also please note, I will gladly do more such experiments, and also hope to do some on a day were there is no mirage evident. Nevertheless, when all the images are taken together, it's quite clear that more is visible at higher elevations. Indeed, even if the telescopic view HAD restored part of the view, the non-telescopic elevated view restored FAR MORE of the view:
12m 8x
20110918-003 by
max_wedge, on Flickr
In a Flat Earth Scenario, increased elevation can not restore any part of the image, since there is no hill of curvature to obsure anything in the first place.
As you said, it would be good to have better quality images to work with. In a sense this is impossible since we are working from pictures of a horizon close to 30km distant. So to take comparative shots at low magnification, details will of necessity be highly pixellated. Of course some of the issue comes down to my equipment which could be of higher quality, but at $20,000 for the lens I'd prefer to use for this experiment, that ain't gonna happen!! Also a higher megepixel camera would help. Also, a better quality telescope would also improve the quality of the images.
However that said, I believe the results are adequate. The details while blurry are easy to compare from image to image.