- Jan 29, 2017
- 12,920
- 13,372
- Country
- Canada
- Faith
- Agnostic
- Marital Status
- Private
As a kid, I spent a number of years interested in amateur astronomy. Consequently I became quite familiar with the night sky and various observations thereof.
Flash-forward a few decades and the bizarre rise of the "flat Earth" movement making claims that completely contradict traditional views of the structure of our universe. I've tried reconciling these claims with what I have personally observed.
One of these observations is the fact that the stars appear to move at night. This is naturally caused by the rotation of the Earth. As the rotates, our "viewing window" of the universe shifts and the stars appear to move across the sky. This is exactly the same phenomenon we observe in the day time with Sun.
In the case of stars, it's also apparent that the relative motion of the stars differs relative to the axis of rotation. For example, if one is in the Northern Hemisphere and looks up at Polaris (the North Star), it moves very little while other stars appear to rotate around the position of Polaris. This is due to the fact that the axis of Earth's rotation is effectively pointed at Polaris.
Long-exposure photography nicely shows the relative paths of stars as the Earth rotates:
Flat Earthers, to their credit, don't seem to deny this phenomenon. And how could they? It's so patently obvious that even cursory star gazing demonstrates this.
What is interesting about the apparent movement of stars and astronomy is that this causes challenges in observing stars, particularly through telescopes. If you try to observe a star through sufficiently high magnification you can even see this movement in real time. Any extended observation through a telescope causes such stars to continually drift out of view.
Fortunately there is a way to compensate for this: the equatorial mount.
The original equatorial mount (the German equatorial mount) was invented about 200 years ago by Joseph von Fraunhofer. It features two axes of movement. Many modern telescopes are still equipped with these mounts.
By aligning one of the axes of the mount parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation, one can effectively compensate for the Earth's rotation by rotating along that axis.
This is where Flat Earth cosmology runs into problems.
Flat Earthers don't seem to deny the apparent movement of the night's sky. Rather, the alternative explanations I've seen suggest that stars are much smaller balls of light suspended a few thousand miles about the Earth's surface. The stars themselves rotate around the same polar axis directly above the North's Pole (or per FE maps, the Earth's center).
In the FE version of the universe, a German equatorial mount only would work if one was directly at the North Pole. At the North Pole, you'd simply point the polar axis straight up and then one could track any star by just rotating the telescope on that axis.
If you were *not* directly at the North Pole, however, it would no longer be possible to track an object rotating in the sky with a single axis of rotation. You would now need two axes of rotation to compensate for that object's movement.
I found a video showing a 3D model of telescope tracking a flat Earth scenario. This video nicely shows that when attempting to track a moving object and one is not aligned with the axis of movement of that object, two axes of correction are required to maintain tracking.
Skip to about 19:10 to see the difference between two axes of tracking versus one axes of tracking of a moving object in the FE model:
I've tried searching for FE explanations as to why equatorial mounts and a single axis of correction works for astronomy when according to FE model they shouldn't. The only thing I've found have been Flat Earthers just baldly asserting that equatorial mounts magically correct for apparent star movement... and that's it. There seems to be no understanding from Flat Earthers of the geometry involved and that equatorial mounts cannot correct off-axis movement with a single axis of rotation in the Flat Earth universe.
At any rate, this is just one of numerous observations of the night sky that falsifies Flat Earth cosmology. Seasonal variation of star constellations, variations in of the night sky at different latitudes (I haven't even begun discussing the Southern Hemisphere), observations of things like satellites and ISS, etc, all defy flat Earth claims. I've tried looking up FE explanations for these and none of it makes a lick of sense. Even star trail photographs shouldn't appear the way they do in the FE model (they should appear like distorted ellipses).
It only reinforces that if there are any sincere Flat Earthers, none of them seem to have performed even basic astronomy.
Flash-forward a few decades and the bizarre rise of the "flat Earth" movement making claims that completely contradict traditional views of the structure of our universe. I've tried reconciling these claims with what I have personally observed.
One of these observations is the fact that the stars appear to move at night. This is naturally caused by the rotation of the Earth. As the rotates, our "viewing window" of the universe shifts and the stars appear to move across the sky. This is exactly the same phenomenon we observe in the day time with Sun.
In the case of stars, it's also apparent that the relative motion of the stars differs relative to the axis of rotation. For example, if one is in the Northern Hemisphere and looks up at Polaris (the North Star), it moves very little while other stars appear to rotate around the position of Polaris. This is due to the fact that the axis of Earth's rotation is effectively pointed at Polaris.
Long-exposure photography nicely shows the relative paths of stars as the Earth rotates:
Flat Earthers, to their credit, don't seem to deny this phenomenon. And how could they? It's so patently obvious that even cursory star gazing demonstrates this.
What is interesting about the apparent movement of stars and astronomy is that this causes challenges in observing stars, particularly through telescopes. If you try to observe a star through sufficiently high magnification you can even see this movement in real time. Any extended observation through a telescope causes such stars to continually drift out of view.
Fortunately there is a way to compensate for this: the equatorial mount.
The original equatorial mount (the German equatorial mount) was invented about 200 years ago by Joseph von Fraunhofer. It features two axes of movement. Many modern telescopes are still equipped with these mounts.
By aligning one of the axes of the mount parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation, one can effectively compensate for the Earth's rotation by rotating along that axis.
This is where Flat Earth cosmology runs into problems.
Flat Earthers don't seem to deny the apparent movement of the night's sky. Rather, the alternative explanations I've seen suggest that stars are much smaller balls of light suspended a few thousand miles about the Earth's surface. The stars themselves rotate around the same polar axis directly above the North's Pole (or per FE maps, the Earth's center).
In the FE version of the universe, a German equatorial mount only would work if one was directly at the North Pole. At the North Pole, you'd simply point the polar axis straight up and then one could track any star by just rotating the telescope on that axis.
If you were *not* directly at the North Pole, however, it would no longer be possible to track an object rotating in the sky with a single axis of rotation. You would now need two axes of rotation to compensate for that object's movement.
I found a video showing a 3D model of telescope tracking a flat Earth scenario. This video nicely shows that when attempting to track a moving object and one is not aligned with the axis of movement of that object, two axes of correction are required to maintain tracking.
Skip to about 19:10 to see the difference between two axes of tracking versus one axes of tracking of a moving object in the FE model:
I've tried searching for FE explanations as to why equatorial mounts and a single axis of correction works for astronomy when according to FE model they shouldn't. The only thing I've found have been Flat Earthers just baldly asserting that equatorial mounts magically correct for apparent star movement... and that's it. There seems to be no understanding from Flat Earthers of the geometry involved and that equatorial mounts cannot correct off-axis movement with a single axis of rotation in the Flat Earth universe.
At any rate, this is just one of numerous observations of the night sky that falsifies Flat Earth cosmology. Seasonal variation of star constellations, variations in of the night sky at different latitudes (I haven't even begun discussing the Southern Hemisphere), observations of things like satellites and ISS, etc, all defy flat Earth claims. I've tried looking up FE explanations for these and none of it makes a lick of sense. Even star trail photographs shouldn't appear the way they do in the FE model (they should appear like distorted ellipses).
It only reinforces that if there are any sincere Flat Earthers, none of them seem to have performed even basic astronomy.
Last edited: