Monday, November 13, 2017

Distance to the specific height of object beyond the Horizon

In this tutorial I will give some short explanation about how the object visibility related to the distance from the horizon. For the object need to be visible beyond the horizon line, then its height must be increased.  Look at the picture below:

So based to the picture we get the distance to horizon line:
R2+d2=(R+h)2R2+d2=R2+2Rh+h2d2=2Rh+h2d=h(2R+h)2Rh
Then from this we get the distance to the specific height of object beyond the horizon line. So the object must have this minimum height to stay visible to the oberver A. Then we get: R2+d21=(R+h1)2R2+d21=R2+h21+2Rh1h21+2Rh1d21=0
then we get (using quadratic formula): h1=2R±4R2+4d212h1=R2+d21R
If we standing in the beach with the height 12 feet or 3.6 m then the distance to the horizon line is (according to wikipedia): d=2Rh=26371 km3.61000 km=6.7 km
If the object at the distance 17.67 miles or 28.43 km from observer A, then it will have a distance 28.43 km6.7 km=21.73 km  from the horizon. Then it must have a minimum height h1=(6371 km)2+(21.73 km)26371 km=0.03705 km=37.05 m
to stay visible to the observer A.