Oahu Visible from Kauai, 90 Miles Away

[dgaubatz313]

I saw this video and thought i would share it. Being 90 miles away there should be 5,400 feet of curvature.









I'd also like to add something that i never hear people talk about. Let's say you have 1,000 feet of curvature and you have a building that is 1,050 feet tall; you shouldn't be able to see the building even though the building is taller than the curvature and here's why... the building isn't straight up and parallel to the observer, it is leaning away from the observer so you can't count the full height of the building as a indicator of whether or not you should be able to see the building. Draw a circle , then draw a human on top of it; somewhere down the circle draw a building, now notice if you want to count the full height of the tower relative to the observer you have to draw it parallel to the observer and to do this you have to draw the building through the circle slightly and along the circle edge, so to count the full height of a building you would have to have a building slightly through the ground or along the ground until some space is created between the tower and the ground due to the curvature on a globe.

[quaentum]

How come you can see Oahu? The visible distance between two points are the horizon distance from each point added together. Choosing the horizon distance from just 1 point does not give a valid answer. So how far can we see from say the highest points on each island. Oahu 4025 ft = horizon distance of 83.74 miles added to Kauai 5243 ft = horizon distance of 95.58 miles give a visual distance of 179.32 miles they could be apart and still be able to see one from the other.
Oh and the two closest points of the islands are only 63 miles apart.

[Just think about it]

The clue in the newspaper clip was "Weather conditions allowed people to see..." It is a known fact that light can be distorted by different atmospheric conditions. Otherwise you would be able to see Oahu on every clear, or fairly clear, day if the earth was flat. Obviously this is not true, unless you travel to the highest points of the island. See many other instances where a city is visible across a lake on certain days, and not every day.