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John Michell lecture
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Edited Jul 03, 2016, 13:36
Re: John Michell lecture
Jul 03, 2016, 13:34
As well as all the problems related to the challenge which you keep evading or pretend to misunderstand ,you have also managed to shoot yourself in the foot with your daft attempt at providing an alternative to the challenge i.e. another evasion .
The pics , of post medieval walls not a hillfort , proved that .

Ironic and very funny that the pic of the book should be by an author who made a major error in calculating alts . Pity you didn’t do the calculation for the alt at the site , you might have discovered your error , but you would have got that wrong too .

The altitude , like evidence is critical . It is directly related to distance from the observer .In most cases the distance to the horizon from a monument can be anything from less than a hundred metres and possible a few kilometres .The greater the distance the less an additional metre or so matters to the outcome .
In a case where the horizon is close , a small change in the distance to the horizon can have a more marked impact on the calculation of the altitude . The same applies to a situation where the horizon is extreme .In this case we have a situation as extreme as it is possible to get , Unlike most examples in arcahaeoastronomy the horizon is not only very close it is also very high . This means that any change in distance to the horizon can have a significant impact in the resulting alt and declination . This means that to do the calc accurately we must have an accurate co-ordinate for the observing point .
And that is the problem , by actually using alt calculations ,as opposed to giving them lip service , it is possible to calculate from the co-ordinates and date you supplied coupled with the pic that there was an error in the data .
I am assuming that the date was correct in which case the error must be in the co-ordinates .
Simply , the point where you took the pic is a different spot from the co-ordinates you supplied . The point you supplied would not see the sun rise as shown in the pic .
This wouldn’t have mattered quite so much in a normal calculation , but as this was an extreme case it does .You attempting to be funny has only left you looking even dafter than usual .
In the extremely unlikely event that you do face up to the challenge ,at least ensure you come up with the correct co-ordinates .
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