Debunking Flat Earth Misconceptions
The Tiangong space station is equipped with a panoramic camera. It produces panoramic video in the equirectangular projection. It has a field of view of more than 180° & can see “behind” the camera. The image is unlike what our eyes see.
Flat-Earthers noticed the “funny” shape of the Earth from the Tiangong’s live stream & use it to discredit the mission. In reality, the image is panoramic. It shows the view behind the camera & cannot be compared to what our eyes would see.
The Blue Marble is an image of Earth taken by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft on its way to the Moon. It was taken from a distance of 29000 km from Earth’s surface.
Flat-Earthers dismiss it by incorrectly asserting that the image covers a too-small area of Earth’s surface, due to their failure to account for the maps’ distortion.
Continue reading “Blue Marble and the Visible Area of Earth’s Surface”
A panorama image is stitched from multiple photos that were taken from different angles, forming a very wide field of view, even 360°×180°, covering every possible angle from the viewer.
Someone has taken a panorama from a high-altitude balloon and made available the results in various projections. Flat-Earthers saw a flat horizon in one of the panorama images and took the wrong conclusion. The horizon will appear flat in a cylindrical or equirectangular projection due to an effect of the projection. The panorama creator also has the panorama in other formats, including an interactive one in the general perspective projection, which shows how it would look from a human eye, and it shows the curvature.
