Can You See the Republic of Ireland from England? | Hacker News Reader

Can You See the Republic of Ireland from England?

anglezarke.net

282 pointsqwertyuiop_122 comments

Loving the inclusion of a image from an Ordinance Survey (OS) map. For those who haven’t heard of them, maybe the younger members on here or anyone from outside the U.K., OS maps were the U.K. standard before GPS and Google Maps et al. We were even taught how to read them as kids at school and youth centres (eg scouts). In the days before ubiquitous GPS, it was considered an important life skill to read maps, understand grid references and all the various different markings on an OS map. To this day I still find OS maps to be the best around for clarity and information density. Though I won’t deny I also have a little nostalgia for their stylings too.

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

Rose-tinted nostalgia surely?

OS map styling is beautiful, but folding maps is the work of devils. You must remember trying to pin sections down so you could see across the paper splits caused by the pure evilness that is folding. It is possible my rage might also be caused by growing up on the point of a four-way boundary in Explorer and Landranger format.

More seriously though, do they no longer teach at least basic navigation skills in school? It still feels, to me, like it is an essential life skill. If only for being able to assess the validity of your phone's answers in the most general case.

Are you from Stalybridge?

The first day of class in Texas History in my school was devoted to learning how to fold a map (hello fellow Mr Buttrey students). It was a good time investment.

OS has a really nice app I’ve used for long distance walking trips. I still carry hard copy maps because I’m like that but I mostly don’t use them except to get a broader view.

OS have a variety of products including maps supplied rolled in a tube to avoid folding. I think the 1:10000 scale has the names of individual fields on farms.

If you want to walk, as opposed to just get somewhere in a car, I have yet to find anything better than an OS map. Google Maps is hopeless for footpaths; OpenStreetMaps is a bit better but it depends a lot on whether somebody enthusiastic has put in the data for the area you're in. The OS map is always reliably comprehensive. Plus these days if you buy a paper map it includes a code so you can also download the digital version to a mobile app (or you can get an annual subscription to get access to the whole lot, but for me I find that uneconomical.)

In Czechia and Slovakia we have mapy.cz which gives you more detailed map for walking/hiking, including contour lines. See [^1] for example.

The coloured trails you can see at more detailed zoom levels, are part of the hiking trail system. The outdoor signage even has a national technical norm [^2] (in Slovak, but has some terminology translated int to English and German).

[1] https://en.mapy.cz/turisticka?x=19.8702765&y=48.7675046&z=14 [2] http://www.jazdecka-turistika.sk/images/stories/dokumenty/KT...

I must concur, I have used mapy.cz for hiking across the Europe with great success. Even on Iceland.

This is just OpenStreetMap with another frontend on top, you can see this by going to the area[1] and going to the right, selecting layers and looking at the CyclOSM one.

Also, a bit lame that on mapy.cz, you have to click on the "and others" to actually see the OpenStreetMap credit.

[1]: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/48.75343/19.87948

Mapy.cz has a lot of other layers, try them out. Including historical and photo maps. This is the full list of holders of copyrights:

Základní, Turistická, Zimní a další níže neuvedené mapy:

    „© Seznam.cz, a.s.”

    „© AOPK ČR – ochrana přírody a krajiny”

    „© Slovenská agentúra živ. prostredia” – digitální model terénu SR

    „© Národné lesnické centrum SR” – lesní a polní cesty SR

    „© Přispěvatelé OpenStreetMap”

Letecká mapa (ortofotomapa):

    „© Seznam.cz, a.s.” (zoom 9-20 jen v ČR)

    „© TopGis, s.r.o.” (zoom 9-20 jen v ČR)

    „© EUROSENSE s.r.o.” (zoom 9-19 jen SR)

    „© GEODIS Slovakia s.r.o.” (zoom 9-19 jen SR)

    „© www.basemap.at” (zoom 9-19 jen Rakousko)

    „© NASA Earth Observatory” (zoom 2-8)

    „© Sentinel-2 cloudless - https://s2maps.eu by EOX IT Services GmbH (Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016 & 2017” (zoom 8-13 jen Evropa mimo ČR, SR)

    „© Microsoft Corporation” (zoom 14-19 jen mimo ČR a SR)

Archivní Letecká mapa '15, '12, '06 a '03:

    „© GEODIS BRNO, s.r.o.” (zoom 9-20 jen v ČR)

    „© EUROSENSE s.r.o.” (zoom 9-19 jen SR)

    „© GEODIS Slovakia s.r.o.” (zoom 9-19 jen SR)

    „© NASA Earth Observatory” (zoom 2-7)

    „© Sentinel-2 cloudless - https://s2maps.eu by EOX IT Services GmbH (Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016 & 2017” (zoom 8-13 jen mimo ČR a SR)

Historická mapa (z 19. století):

    „© 2nd Military Survey, Austrian State Archive”

    „© Datový podklad MŽP ČR”

    „© Laboratoř geoinformatiky UJEP”

Panorama:

    „© Seznam.cz, a.s.”

    „© GIS - Stavinvex, a.s.”

    „© TopGis, s.r.o.”

    „© GEODIS BRNO, s.r.o.”

3D mapa:

    „© Seznam.cz, a.s.”

    „© Melown Maps™”

    „© TopGis, s.r.o.“

    „© GEODIS BRNO, s.r.o.”

    „© www.basemap.at” (zoom 9-19 jen Rakousko)

    „© NASA Earth Observatory” (zoom 2-8)

    „© Sentinel-2 cloudless - https://s2maps.eu by EOX IT Services GmbH (Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016 & 2017” (zoom 8-13 jen Evropa mimo ČR, SR)

    „© Microsoft Corporation“ (zoom 14-19 jen mimo ČR a SR)”

    “©2005-16 Jonathan de Ferranti”

    “© Přispěvatelé OpenStreetMap”

Surely there's nothing wrong with using OSM as one of your primary map data sources? As far as I know, Mapy.cz uses several sources in the Czechoslovak territory, although abroad, perhaps quite a bit fewer of them are being used.

There's nothing wrong with it - it's just not giving credit back properly that I have an issue with.

Take this for example, which got some front page news time in the UK:

- https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/dec/27/walk-th...

- https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/jun/13/how-the-slow-...

- https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-54562137

Pretty much the entire thing is taken from OSM and there isn't a single mention of that on any of those pages.

(and as I understand it, Slow Ways haven't contributed back their changes to OSM which is required by the OSM license).

> it's just not giving credit back properly that I have an issue with.

https://napoveda.seznam.cz/cz/mapy/mapy-licencni-podminky/li...

Mapy.cz is a great product and I would say "underrated". They feel so much more natural than Google Maps to me.

But that might be cultural (de)formation of a previously young person who used to hike with paper maps of similar style.

There's now a £2.99 a month subscription, which can be cancelled at any time, that gets you all maps - and you can download chunks in advance too: https://shop.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/apps/os-maps/

I've found open street map much better in the lake district. The car park at walna scar is missing on the os map, which is the best spot to walk the old man. There are a number of missing paths on the os map around rusland pool.

I quite like the StreetComplete Android app:

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplet...

It sees where you are, finds incomplete items on OSM and asks you if you know things about them. Very handy to use as you're walking around, and a very easy way to submit data to OSM.

I wish I could add new items using that app that are missing from it.

> OpenStreetMaps is a bit better but it depends a lot on whether somebody enthusiastic has put in the data for the area you're in

If you do find an area with missing data, do feel free to create an account and add it yourself.

That's literally the only way the open source map gets better.

I, personally, gave up trying to update the data for my area, because about once a month all changes get reverted as "they may be from a copyrighted source" (which happens to be the public domain federal mapping service).

Someone else was more persistent, and managed to get my suburb as existing after five years.

There's a lot more to it than just nobody having volunteered to do the legwork yet.

You cannot just copy and paste things from a public domain data source without first checking the copyright terms and making sure that they're compatible with the OSM license (if they are, you can comment on the revert changeset saying so):

- https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources

In my experience, the satellite imagery available in the OSM editor to trace buildings and paths (which the other commenter was talking about) - and when I want to add shops and other things; a quick survey with some photos - are both more than enough for most things.

> You cannot just copy and paste things from a public domain data source without first checking the copyright terms

There's an oxymoron here. Many public data sources that are free to use, do in fact have copyright considerations to be made, correct.

However, "public domain" does not have copyright terms attached. That is why it is in the public domain. If something is actually public domain, there is no copyright holder, and no terms to be enforced.

If you're absolutely sure that there's no copyright attached - go back to the revert changesets and comment saying so.

I got tired of doing that every month.

I find Harveys Maps to be much better for walking. They don't cover the whole country but they do have the advantage of

- Having the whole of the Lake District on a single map.

- Printing on plastic so they don't get damaged and are more compact than the OS laminated maps

- Excluding political boundaries as I don't care about them

- Showing the location of the footpath as well as its legal location; sometimes they're on different sides of the wall

- The reverse of the map usually gives you detailed information on the layers of rock beneath your feet which is interesting for extra reading.

You're not kidding about the limited coverage -- their website shows nothing except some trail maps over the whole of southern England with the exception of Dartmoor. And southern England is where I am so it's where I walk mostly...

The new laminated maps they sell are a great help in this regard. And whilst they obviously add some bulk, the added waterproofness is a great boon

Beats my days in the army when we had to laminate each map by hand. They were a nightmare to fold after that

I don't understand why they don't just print them on plastic like Harveys do. It is so much more useable and durable.

> OS map styling is beautiful, but folding maps is the work of devils.

I don’t miss folding paper maps but my comment was about the mapping data not the physical medium. Thankfully you can now have OS maps electronically. Best of both worlds.

Though at least paper maps have their unique quality that they still retain their data even after your batteries go flat ;) I joke but actually that can be be invaluable if you’re camping and hiking over multi-days. Also useful if you end up anywhere with low mobile phone coverage.

> More seriously though, do they no longer teach at least basic navigation skills in school? It still feels, to me, like it is an essential life skill. If only for being able to assess the validity of your phone's answers in the most general case.

Good question. I assumed they wouldn’t because the curriculum is pretty jam packed. But after after asking your question to teacher friend, it seems they still do teach map reading.

In all honesty, I'd mostly prefer a paper OS map to all alternatives all other things being equal(weather/space/etc). My comment was largely from a place of love, it is the only reason I've used enough to be annoyed about the splitting or needing to carry an armful for an afternoon cycle ride.

This thread did teach me that there are a few more usable print options for sale on the OS website too, which is great.

> it seems they still do teach map reading.

That pleases me. I'm strongly of the opinion we should be teaching to the available tools(phone maps/calculators/etc), but with enough preliminary knowledge to understand implications and judge validity.

They don't (in the UK).

And every year people die after they decide to go trekking with only a phone and gmaps, and it runs out of power and they get lost.

OS map styling is beautiful, but folding maps is the work of devils.

As a long distance through hiker I find paper maps invaluable. They are lighter than a gps and don’t require batteries. They provide a greater perspective than you can experience through a screen — very important when plotting a route (trail info tends to be quite out or date here in the US). I always carry paper maps.

To reach for a lowbrow Twister quote "Look, all I'm saying is don't fold the maps." Are the paper maps you use available flat or tubed?

I've learnt from this thread that Ordnance Survey produce a surprising number of formats beyond the common pre-folded maps, even including custom runs¹ that also fix my trapped-on-a-map-boundary complaint. Peering through the window of my local outdoor supplies shop this afternoon showed only a rack of the folded ones sadly.

¹ https://shop.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/custom-made/

I do fold because I typically only have so much room in my pack. I am pathetically type a and have multiple maps which I try to fold differently so that I can try to take a good one for a given trip (doesn’t really work on long through hikes.

The USGS has stopped printing maps so the choice these days is commercial ones or downloading and printing at home (which eliminates both the size advantage and the high resolution of offset printing).

The Canadian version:

https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth-sciences/geography/topographic...

The French version: https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/carte?c=6.89051647838162,45.9...

you have the entire country at down to 1:3000, but the best ones are around 1:25000.

the American version https://store.usgs.gov/map-locator

The roof of my father-in-law's garden shed happens to be made from the copper plates that were used to print those maps! He used to work for OS, and they threw all the plates out with the transition to digital printing. You can sit in the shed, look up and see mirrored engraved maps all over the ceiling.

As far as I know he was legitimately given the plates as scrap, but I'm using a sock puppet to avoid any possibility of OS deciding that the plates are theirs after all and going after him.

That's amazing. I would love to see a photo.

That's museum material. Please keep it!

I give you Soviet-era spy/military maps of foreign locations (sometimes mire detailed than OS maps): https://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/

The OS data is still incredibly detailed. Practically every large boulder seems to be included, let alone every building. They licence some of it to Apple Maps.

Bing maps UK have an Ordnance Survey layer which can be handy. Most County Council's have an interactive footpath map which uses a bigger scale OS map, very handy for finding a house name.

> To this day I still find OS maps to be the best around for clarity and information density.

It no doubt depends on the application, but for hiking I've found the Harvey BMC maps to be much more usable than the OS maps. The 1:40000 scale is a happy median between the Landranger and Explorer series and printed on plastic rather than laminated they're much easier to handle.

https://www.harveymaps.co.uk/acatalog/british-mountain-maps....

The OS remains the absolute best, most detailed, most up to date, source of mapping and geospatial data for the UK. It's a fundamental part of my day to day workflow working in telecoms and without it my job would be staggeringly more difficult. All UK ISPs (actually putting fibre out there) rely heavily on this data. OS MasterMap is a phenomenal product giving access to crazy levels of information depth via remarkably accessible APIs. And as of relatively recently some of that API access is also free, and even the paid categories have a free tier.

If you find yourself in a position needed map data for the UK I would behove you to try OS out rather than defaulting to the regular big-tech names.

I've never used the OS maps as I rarely visit the UK. I've worked with similar maps in the Netherlands though through a GIS system (also worked in telecom). But when hiking (mainly in Spain) I always prefer OpenStreetMap to the official maps.

The problem with the official government maps is that they are official. If a hiking trail is nothing more than a trodden path through the brush, they won't show it as it's not an official path. If they'd put it on there they'd admit it would be a path and be on the hook for upkeep etc. Google Maps is also really bad for this usecase as I believe they get most of their data from the governments.

So when it comes to really obscure paths which are pretty essential to hiking, the government maps are not as good. OSM shows how it is in reality, the government maps show how they want things to be :)

But like I said, perhaps the UK is different in that sense.

OS maps is really good for hiking :) That’s what I mostly use it for (well running more than hiking, but that’s effectively the same use case)

Particularly in England & Wales, most hiking trails are well-mapped. Because we have no legal right to hike on private land (which is why I call out England & Wales separately from Scotland, Scottish law differs), most hiking trails are either specifically created by public bodies (national trust, etc) or are historical rights of way.

In the USA, an approximate equivalent is the USGS topographic map quads.

Here's[1] a YouTube video I just watched yesterday which shows how they used to do Ordnance Surveys back in the 1960s. The ingenuity is truly amazing!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7SJVBX7jxo

I built a small wildlife pond in the corner of a field. A couple of months pass and it magically pops up on the OS maps, right shape and dimensions too.

Meanwhile google maps is merrily directing vehicluar traffic down a precipitous footpath to get stuck in the ford at the bottom despite endless attempts at getting them to correct it.

Atmospheric refraction is a thing. From where I live I have a 45 mile view to a city. And a telescope.

The view varies a lot, and not just because of haze.

When the seeing is clear and the light is good it's just about possible to make out tall buildings. Some days they're clearly visible above the horizon. Other days they seem partially obscured. Every once in a while they seem to float above the horizon rather than on it.

Clearly there's some refraction happening. And if there was anything behind the city - there isn't, for about a hundred miles or so - I might be able to see that too.

There have been a few times where I've wondered if I can, but at that distance it's impossible to be sure.

Sometimes you can even see Milwaukee standing flat at the shores of Muskegon, an ~80 mile distance much like seeing the Isle of Man in the article but without using the height advantages at each side. https://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/2012/05/the_lights_of_mi...

You can even see it from Spain if you have a a good tower and the blood of Noah in your veins.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hercules

Here is an easy way to confirm if it's truly Ireland: this is a site that I absolutely LOVE: it has a 3D model of the earth's surface, can simulate the horizon visible from any point on the planet, and can automatically identify the farthest peaks visible: https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/makepanoramas.htm

Here are the horizons it computed from the author's location, annotated by myself to align them with the pictures from the blog post: https://imgur.com/a/AlGiDi4 (open that on desktop—imgur serves low-resolution images to mobile browsers)...and unfortunately, what the author believes to be Ireland is actually Anglesey. What he believes to be Anglesey is actually Great Orme. What he believes to be Great Orme is actually Little Orme. Essentially all the peaks he identified are in reality shifted by 1 peak to the north. And the outline of the peaks in his pictures match the outlines of the simulated horizon so there is no doubt: he saw Anglesey (70 miles) and not Ireland (~150 miles).

Here are the parameters I used to generate the first rendering (after filling them in, click "Panorama anzeigen"—direct link: https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne... ):

Breite (°): 53.63638 Länge (°): -2.53707 (these are the GPS coordinates that correspond to the layby where the author parked and made his binocular observations)

Blickrichtung (°): 248 (azimuth, or direction of observation)

Blickfeld (°): 7 (field of view)

Zoomfaktor: 10 (zoom)

And for the second rendering, just change these params (direct link: https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne... ):

Blickrichtung (°): 251.5

Blickfeld (°): 3

Zoomfaktor: 30

When I was a teenager I realized one morning I could see what could be Mont Blanc from my town, but very rarely only on specific mornings when the sun would rise right behind it. But I could never confirm because I saw it of my own eyes, without binoculars, and the right meteorological conditions only reoccured twice in my lifetime to see it. About 20 years later, when I found the udeuschle.de panorama site, I checked and was absolutely delighted when the site confirmed the shape of the peak that I remember so well matched exactly the generated horizon :-) It was at a distance of 130 miles...

EDIT: in order to see Ireland from the blog post author's location, you have to raise the camera at an altitude of about 1400m above ground (set the altitude in the Kamerahöhe field): https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne... (screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/AT0BAnm ) The Irish peak visible is mount Kippure, next to the red mark "Max Dist" which is 159 miles away). It's a site made for desktop browsers. You can hover the mouse pointer over any peak label and it will show the distance to it. If you click it, Google Maps opens to the given peak, etc. A really neat way to explore the Earth. By the way in the above rendering at altitude 1400m you can still recognize Little Orme and Great Orme (at about one third from the image from left). The high-altitude perspective gives an idea of how much farther Ireland is behind these peaks.

EDIT 2: at only about 900m above ground, the author could see Slieve Donard 143 miles away in Ireland (well, Northern Ireland, not the Republic of Ireland): https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne...

Another one I’ve used is heywhatsthat.com

I think you undersold the upshot here, which is that no, the author did not actually see Ireland.

Anyway, there are so many little projects out there run by people outside of the whole open source universe and don't even think to put up a Github page. Windows freeware is a big example, as well as a bunch of little hobby websites that probably don't earn any money but provide extremely valuable services. They'll probably just disappear one day when the owner gets bored or dies.

In the mapping department alone, there's this, gpsvisualizer.com, caltopo.com, Orux Maps (although that developer may earn enough from donations to keep it going). Lots of web based tools that are fulfilling a critical role for someone, somewhere, but nobody has a backup copy of the code.

> a bunch of little hobby websites that probably don't earn any money but provide extremely valuable services. They'll probably just disappear one day when the owner gets bored or dies.

I mean, that's exactly The Small Web of Ye Olde Days, for which HN keeps pining and lamenting every day. Or rather, the cream of that Olde Web, on top of the ‘here's my dog’ home pages.

Is that considering one can see over the horizon when the conditions are right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_refraction

> Atmospheric refraction is accounted for with the Gaussian refraction coefficient or 0.13 [0]

It appears so.

[0] https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/help_01_en.htm

This is one of my favourite HN comments. Not preachy, boastful or antagonistic, just the sharing of good information

I think Scafell Pike (highest mountain in England) might be the most ideal point to see the Republic of Ireland, as it's close to the West coast, and has a westward view not obstructed by mountainous Wales. From what I can see, you'd need to build an observation tower about 410m tall on Scafell Pike to see Irish land (specifically Slieve Foye): https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne...

> you have to raise the camera at an altitude of about 1400m above ground

Is there a point on the English mainland terrain that this would apply to. Otherwise you could just go up in a helicopter.

The highest point in the entire archipelago is Ben Nevis in Scotland, at 1345m. The highest point in England is less than 1000m. (Scafell Pike, 978m).

It appears not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28582695

Where is the longest visible line of sight on Earth from point A to point B?

https://travel.stackexchange.com/q/98897/4188

There reverse is certainly claimed in Ireland, e.g. https://www.independent.ie/life/travel/travel-news/i-was-sur...

The end of the original article mentions that he is talking about England as opposed to Wales. Your article only mentions Wales.

Good point.

Snowdonia is in Wales, not England.

And should really be called Eryri. But, point accepted.

Not in English, it isn’t.

Beijing or Peking...?

Beijing = Northern Chinese pronunciation

Peking = Southern Chinese pronunciation

But neither one is something we can pronounce correctly anyway, I suppose.

Well then, Florence or Firenze?

Greece or Ελλάδα;

Japan or 日本国

Beijing and Peking are different romanizatiins of 北京

Beijing is Pinyin and Peking is Wade-giles

Both are pronounced the same way

Well, you're one for three. Beijing and Peking are different romanizations of 北京. It is not true that beijing is pinyin and peking is Wade-Giles, nor is it true that they are pronounced the same way.

Wade-Giles would be pei-ching. (Pinyin is indeed beijing.)

Wow, that's mind-blowing. It does seem so romantic, to consider how people might have imagined a far away land.

Wow, that's a great photo.

I grew up in Wicklow town and we could see Wales occasionally. If my dad said "you can see Wales today" what he was really saying was "the weather's great today".

Reminds me of this: https://beyondrange.wordpress.com/

Pictures with really long lines of sight, the current record is 443km.

Using https://www.everythingrf.com/rf-calculators/line-of-sight-ca... because it's the first result that came up.

298m height where he's viewing from = 61.6km line of sight

610m height of Knockbrack = 88.2km LOS

Total of 149.8km theoretical visible distance.

And in the article he mentions a real distance of 154 miles -- not kilometers. So doesn't sound like there is any chance it was actually Ireland?

It's not an unreasonable distance for a refraction mirage, however. My math reached the same number as yours, but it does assume the light goes in a straight line.

Reminders me of this article; https://www.abc57.com/news/skyline-skepticism-the-lake-michi...

The 170km number given in another comment (and by the calculators) is meant to take into account "normal" light-bending; the distance here is 250km. While I'm not an expert, that seems like a lot of extra distance / angle to make up.

you can use shortwave radios to communicate 10,000 miles using ionospheric refraction.

It is reasonable to think there are similar refraction phenomena in the troposphere, probably associated with thermal inversions

I wonder if the right weather conditions could result in enough atmospheric refraction to make the mountain visible.

Yes, this is called "looming": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looming_and_similar_refraction...

It would need a hell of a lot of atmospheric bending, but I don’t think it’s unprecedented.

Oddly this calculator gives a different result of 172km for those heights, I assume from a different value of R: https://www.translatorscafe.com/unit-converter/el-GR/calcula...

Same result, just true "line of sight" vs. including light bending. The calculator I used gives both values.

Slightly higher distance, but the landscape is more prone to delivering noteworthy views - Croatia and Italy. There's a thread going on on Skyscrapercity detailing views of up to around 250kms away ( https://www.skyscrapercity.com/threads/distant-views-photo-t... )

Croatian to Italy

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/922/SZQWX4.jpg

Looking at Croatia from Italy

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1065x799q90/921/0pw6Xl.jpg

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1065x799q90/922/NmKfQL.jpg

Highly dependent on the weather, obviouslly

I climbed Wee Binnian, in Northern Ireland's Mourne mountain range, a week ago today. Elevation of 745m. The Isle of Man was clearly visible even with the poor conditions. I couldn't see Wales or Scotland, let alone England though. Peakvisor useful for figuring out what might be visible, this is the view I had:

https://peakvisor.com/panorama.html?lat=54.13982150126688&ln...

qwertyuiop_! Did you come across this because you looked up Anglezarke after reading one of the stories about barium sulphate paint and then clicking around on Wikipedia?

Related: you can see Toronto skyline from Niagara falls https://www.blogto.com/city/2015/11/what_toronto_looks_like_...

Nitpick: The name of the country is "Ireland". :)

Only colloquially. The official name includes "The Republic of".

I think it's important to make that distinction here because "Ireland" can also sometimes refer to the whole island.

Incorrect.

From article 4 of the Constitution: "The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland."

I'm not from Ireland but apparently in 1948 they declared that the name of the state should officially be "Republic of Ireland" and did not amend the constitution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Irish_state

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1948/act/22/section/2/ena...

No, they declared "Republic of Ireland" to be an official _description_, not the official name. The name is specified near the beginning of the constitution as Éire, or in the English language, Ireland [1], in article 4, and would require an amendment to change. And while we do them way more often than the US does, we haven't done one for this topic.

1: https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/d5bd8c-constitution-of-ire...

Thats about United Kingdom, but Ireland is mentioned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

Wikipedia seems to think you are both right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ireland#Name

Using "Republic of Ireland" is useful when distinguishing between the island and the state.

Wikipedia says "also known as" which does a lot of heavy lifting. It's known as that externally because of UK government policy in the early days of the nation. This was because they felt recognising the name of the country as Ireland would be recognising claims over Northern Ireland. Other UK variations such as "the Irish Republic", "the Irish Free State" and "Eire" (no fada, in the English language, which is unfortunate as in the Irish language dropping the fada makes it the word for burden) stuck less elsewhere. Since the good friday agreement the UK government has dropped that refusal and similarly the Irish government has used the "and Northern Ireland" bit of the UK's full name.

The one Irish national entity to use the name Republic of Ireland is the football team, which does so as a result of a FIFA ruling as the Northern Ireland football team was the defacto successor of the pre independence football team so kept the name Ireland until FIFA insisted on the disambiguating names.

Look, in a informal context nobody is going to bite your head off for getting it wrong. It's not at the level of going around Zimbabwe talking about Rhodesia, both due to the lower phonetic distance and subsequent outcomes for both countries after British rule, but it comes from the same place. Which is why just this week the normally soft spoken President of Ireland was issuing a rebuke to the DUP for rendering his title as "President of the Republic of Ireland" in the context of a diplomatic dispute. Because it's just not the name of the country.

As an Irish person: you and all other people commenting underneath are wasting your time. No one cares. Ireland or Republic of Ireland.

People (in the UK at least) often distinguish between the republic, the island and Northern Ireland by prefixing with "Republic of". So I don't really understand what your point is because nowhere in the article does it claim the official name of the Republic of Ireland is the Republic of Ireland. By your logic every time someone wrote an article referencing "the UK", it would be appropriate to reply "do you mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, because that's its actual name!"

Not impossible. The longest sightline on Earth is 400km or so https://calgaryvisioncentre.com/news/2017/6/23/tdgft1bsbdlm8...

Sounds like a good test to put up a big laser on top of that peak some time and see if it can be viewed :D

Well, I can't even see the website from my browser.

I'm not so sure about that. I haven't checked the distances, but the claim is that the author has seen a 610m peak from a 150m observation tower, and that it is 150 mi away.

The line of sight radio/radar horizon across the surface of the earth is well known and easy to calculate (1) and for two sources at different heights you can just add them. I get this as being about 94 mi, less than the stated distance.

(1): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_horizon

No, his claim is he can see it from Anglezark, and he gives the viewpoint altitude there as 298m.

atmospheric refraction could greatly extend that distance. See http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/mirage.html...

"The crew of a Canadian ship in the Arctic reported the mirage of a sailing ship off in the distance, upside down. The image was so sharp that the crew could make out the ropes in the rigging and could see people moving about on the deck. Two months later, the ships actually met. When the captains compared their ships' logs, they found that at the time of the sighting the two ships had been 80 miles apart!" (Gallant) The suggested explanation for a visible mirage at such a great distance is the observation of light traveling a long distance when a layer of cooler and denser air is sandwiched between two layers of warmer air (a temperature inversion).

Except the distances here are twice that, and the farther you get apart the more the curvature matters.

Yes true, but presumably this report is for observers standing less than 10m off the surface, not on tall mountains or towers

this mixing of miles and meters is problematic for me

Sky glow at night? Could try a laser to illuminate clouds and look for monochromatic light, or time on-off to ntp synchronised clocks.

This is a lovely bit of sleuthing. They should put a plaque at the spot.

This page just serves me a 403 status.

Seems like they ban your country IP. Same for me (Russia)

Yeah, also in Russia. I could access it with a VPN to somewhere else.

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