Well you did leave this part out of the quote where I explained why this was incorrect to do. Edit: I see you edited in a comment on it
If you put in 500 meters for the altitude its like saying you're standing on a 500 meter tall building, not that the balls radius is 500m larger. The horizon is 50 miles away because you're up so high in relation to the radius of the earth.
The Calculator would have to have even more variables, altitude above sea level of viewing position and the position of what you're viewing for it to be even more accurate. You can see how that starts to get overly complicated when you get that specific. You probably couldn't even make a calculator out of it since you're not even using a simple ball anymore. They're using 3959 (r) as a constant just to make things simpler.
are you accounting for your geographic altitude (from sea-level) when you use that calculator?
In my original example of the cities, I checked the altitudes for both the place I am and the place I was viewing and they are the same altitude above sea level. If a 3959 mile radius ball (or whatever) is now 3959.5 that isn't gonna change a whole hell of a lot in the numbers. 266 feet is a lot. According to a quick search 1 "story" of a building is 14' tall. 266/14 = 19 Wheres the 19 story building hiding?
Well you did leave this part out of the quote where I explained why this was incorrect to do.
If you put in 500 meters for the altitude its like saying you're standing on a 500 meter tall building, not that the balls radius is 500m larger. The horizon is 50 miles away because you're up so high in relation to the radius of the earth.
The Calculator would have to have even more variables, altitude above sea level of viewing position and the position of what you're viewing for it to be even more accurate. You can see how that starts to get overly complicated when you get that specific. You probably couldn't even make a calculator out of it since you're not even using a simple ball anymore. They're using 3959 (r) as a constant just to make things simpler.
are you accounting for your geographic altitude (from sea-level) when you use that calculator?
In my original example of the cities, I checked the altitudes for both the place I am and the place I was viewing and they are the same altitude above sea level. If a 3959 mile radius ball (or whatever) is now 3959.5 that isn't gonna change a whole hell of a lot in the numbers. 266 feet is a lot. According to a quick search 1 "story" of a building is 14' tall. 266/14 = 19 Wheres the 19 story building hiding?
Well you did leave this part out of the quote where I explained why this was incorrect to do.
If you put in 500 meters for the altitude its like saying you're standing on a 500 meter tall building, not that the balls radius is 500m larger. The horizon is 50 miles away because you're up so high in relation to the radius of the earth.
The Calculator would have to have even more variables, altitude above sea level of viewing position and the position of what you're viewing for it to be even more accurate. You can see how that starts to get overly complicated when you get that specific. You probably couldn't even make a calculator out of it since you're not even using a simple ball anymore.
They're using 3959 (r) as a constant just to make things simpler. In my original example of the cities, I checked the altitudes for both the place I am and the place I was viewing and they are the same altitude above sea level. If a 3959 mile radius ball (or whatever) is now 3959.5 that isn't gonna change a whole hell of a lot in the numbers. 266 feet is a lot. According to a quick search 1 "story" of a building is 14' tall. 266/14 = 19 Wheres the 19 story building hiding?