Loving the inclusion of a image from an Ordinance Survey (OS) map. For those who haven’t heard of them, maybe the younger members on here or anyone from outside the U.K., OS maps were the U.K. standard before GPS and Google Maps et al. We were even taught how to read them as kids at school and youth centres (eg scouts). In the days before ubiquitous GPS, it was considered an important life skill to read maps, understand grid references and all the various different markings on an OS map. To this day I still find OS maps to be the best around for clarity and information density. Though I won’t deny I also have a little nostalgia for their stylings too.
The roof of my father-in-law's garden shed happens to be made from the copper plates that were used to print those maps! He used to work for OS, and they threw all the plates out with the transition to digital printing. You can sit in the shed, look up and see mirrored engraved maps all over the ceiling.
As far as I know he was legitimately given the plates as scrap, but I'm using a sock puppet to avoid any possibility of OS deciding that the plates are theirs after all and going after him.
OS map styling is beautiful, but folding maps is the work of devils. You must remember trying to pin sections down so you could see across the paper splits caused by the pure evilness that is folding. It is possible my rage might also be caused by growing up on the point of a four-way boundary in Explorer and Landranger format.
More seriously though, do they no longer teach at least basic navigation skills in school? It still feels, to me, like it is an essential life skill. If only for being able to assess the validity of your phone's answers in the most general case.
If you want to walk, as opposed to just get somewhere in a car, I have yet to find anything better than an OS map. Google Maps is hopeless for footpaths; OpenStreetMaps is a bit better but it depends a lot on whether somebody enthusiastic has put in the data for the area you're in. The OS map is always reliably comprehensive. Plus these days if you buy a paper map it includes a code so you can also download the digital version to a mobile app (or you can get an annual subscription to get access to the whole lot, but for me I find that uneconomical.)
> OS map styling is beautiful, but folding maps is the work of devils.
I don’t miss folding paper maps but my comment was about the mapping data not the physical medium. Thankfully you can now have OS maps electronically. Best of both worlds.
Though at least paper maps have their unique quality that they still retain their data even after your batteries go flat ;) I joke but actually that can be be invaluable if you’re camping and hiking over multi-days. Also useful if you end up anywhere with low mobile phone coverage.
> More seriously though, do they no longer teach at least basic navigation skills in school? It still feels, to me, like it is an essential life skill. If only for being able to assess the validity of your phone's answers in the most general case.
Good question. I assumed they wouldn’t because the curriculum is pretty jam packed. But after after asking your question to teacher friend, it seems they still do teach map reading.
OS has a really nice app I’ve used for long distance walking trips. I still carry hard copy maps because I’m like that but I mostly don’t use them except to get a broader view.
OS have a variety of products including maps supplied rolled in a tube to avoid folding. I think the 1:10000 scale has the names of individual fields on farms.
OS map styling is beautiful, but folding maps is the work of devils.
As a long distance through hiker I find paper maps invaluable. They are lighter than a gps and don’t require batteries. They provide a greater perspective than you can experience through a screen — very important when plotting a route (trail info tends to be quite out or date here in the US). I always carry paper maps.
The first day of class in Texas History in my school was devoted to learning how to fold a map (hello fellow Mr Buttrey students). It was a good time investment.
The OS remains the absolute best, most detailed, most up to date, source of mapping and geospatial data for the UK. It's a fundamental part of my day to day workflow working in telecoms and without it my job would be staggeringly more difficult. All UK ISPs (actually putting fibre out there) rely heavily on this data. OS MasterMap is a phenomenal product giving access to crazy levels of information depth via remarkably accessible APIs. And as of relatively recently some of that API access is also free, and even the paid categories have a free tier.
If you find yourself in a position needed map data for the UK I would behove you to try OS out rather than defaulting to the regular big-tech names.
I've never used the OS maps as I rarely visit the UK. I've worked with similar maps in the Netherlands though through a GIS system (also worked in telecom). But when hiking (mainly in Spain) I always prefer OpenStreetMap to the official maps.
The problem with the official government maps is that they are official. If a hiking trail is nothing more than a trodden path through the brush, they won't show it as it's not an official path. If they'd put it on there they'd admit it would be a path and be on the hook for upkeep etc. Google Maps is also really bad for this usecase as I believe they get most of their data from the governments.
So when it comes to really obscure paths which are pretty essential to hiking, the government maps are not as good. OSM shows how it is in reality, the government maps show how they want things to be :)
But like I said, perhaps the UK is different in that sense.
Bing maps UK have an Ordnance Survey layer which can be handy. Most County Council's have an interactive footpath map which uses a bigger scale OS map, very handy for finding a house name.
> To this day I still find OS maps to be the best around for clarity and information density.
It no doubt depends on the application, but for hiking I've found the Harvey BMC maps to be much more usable than the OS maps. The 1:40000 scale is a happy median between the Landranger and Explorer series and printed on plastic rather than laminated they're much easier to handle.
The OS data is still incredibly detailed. Practically every large boulder seems to be included, let alone every building. They licence some of it to Apple Maps.
I built a small wildlife pond in the corner of a field. A couple of months pass and it magically pops up on the OS maps, right shape and dimensions too.
Meanwhile google maps is merrily directing vehicluar traffic down a precipitous footpath to get stuck in the ford at the bottom despite endless attempts at getting them to correct it.
Atmospheric refraction is a thing. From where I live I have a 45 mile view to a city. And a telescope.
The view varies a lot, and not just because of haze.
When the seeing is clear and the light is good it's just about possible to make out tall buildings. Some days they're clearly visible above the horizon. Other days they seem partially obscured. Every once in a while they seem to float above the horizon rather than on it.
Clearly there's some refraction happening. And if there was anything behind the city - there isn't, for about a hundred miles or so - I might be able to see that too.
There have been a few times where I've wondered if I can, but at that distance it's impossible to be sure.
Sometimes you can even see Milwaukee standing flat at the shores of Muskegon, an ~80 mile distance much like seeing the Isle of Man in the article but without using the height advantages at each side. https://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/2012/05/the_lights_of_mi...
Here is an easy way to confirm if it's truly Ireland: this is a site that I absolutely LOVE: it has a 3D model of the earth's surface, can simulate the horizon visible from any point on the planet, and can automatically identify the farthest peaks visible: https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/makepanoramas.htm
Here are the horizons it computed from the author's location, annotated by myself to align them with the pictures from the blog post: https://imgur.com/a/AlGiDi4 (open that on desktop—imgur serves low-resolution images to mobile browsers)...and unfortunately, what the author believes to be Ireland is actually Anglesey. What he believes to be Anglesey is actually Great Orme. What he believes to be Great Orme is actually Little Orme. Essentially all the peaks he identified are in reality shifted by 1 peak to the north. And the outline of the peaks in his pictures match the outlines of the simulated horizon so there is no doubt: he saw Anglesey (70 miles) and not Ireland (~150 miles).
Breite (°): 53.63638 Länge (°): -2.53707 (these are the GPS coordinates that correspond to the layby where the author parked and made his binocular observations)
Blickrichtung (°): 248 (azimuth, or direction of observation)
When I was a teenager I realized one morning I could see what could be Mont Blanc from my town, but very rarely only on specific mornings when the sun would rise right behind it. But I could never confirm because I saw it of my own eyes, without binoculars, and the right meteorological conditions only reoccured twice in my lifetime to see it. About 20 years later, when I found the udeuschle.de panorama site, I checked and was absolutely delighted when the site confirmed the shape of the peak that I remember so well matched exactly the generated horizon :-) It was at a distance of 130 miles...
EDIT: in order to see Ireland from the blog post author's location, you have to raise the camera at an altitude of about 1400m above ground (set the altitude in the Kamerahöhe field): https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne... (screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/AT0BAnm ) The Irish peak visible is mount Kippure, next to the red mark "Max Dist" which is 159 miles away). It's a site made for desktop browsers. You can hover the mouse pointer over any peak label and it will show the distance to it. If you click it, Google Maps opens to the given peak, etc. A really neat way to explore the Earth. By the way in the above rendering at altitude 1400m you can still recognize Little Orme and Great Orme (at about one third from the image from left). The high-altitude perspective gives an idea of how much farther Ireland is behind these peaks.
I think you undersold the upshot here, which is that no, the author did not actually see Ireland.
Anyway, there are so many little projects out there run by people outside of the whole open source universe and don't even think to put up a Github page. Windows freeware is a big example, as well as a bunch of little hobby websites that probably don't earn any money but provide extremely valuable services. They'll probably just disappear one day when the owner gets bored or dies.
In the mapping department alone, there's this, gpsvisualizer.com, caltopo.com, Orux Maps (although that developer may earn enough from donations to keep it going). Lots of web based tools that are fulfilling a critical role for someone, somewhere, but nobody has a backup copy of the code.
> a bunch of little hobby websites that probably don't earn any money but provide extremely valuable services. They'll probably just disappear one day when the owner gets bored or dies.
I mean, that's exactly The Small Web of Ye Olde Days, for which HN keeps pining and lamenting every day. Or rather, the cream of that Olde Web, on top of the ‘here's my dog’ home pages.
I think Scafell Pike (highest mountain in England) might be the most ideal point to see the Republic of Ireland, as it's close to the West coast, and has a westward view not obstructed by mountainous Wales. From what I can see, you'd need to build an observation tower about 410m tall on Scafell Pike to see Irish land (specifically Slieve Foye): https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne...
I grew up in Wicklow town and we could see Wales occasionally. If my dad said "you can see Wales today" what he was really saying was "the weather's great today".
It's not an unreasonable distance for a refraction mirage, however. My math reached the same number as yours, but it does assume the light goes in a straight line.
The 170km number given in another comment (and by the calculators) is meant to take into account "normal" light-bending; the distance here is 250km. While I'm not an expert, that seems like a lot of extra distance / angle to make up.
Readit News
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance_Survey
As far as I know he was legitimately given the plates as scrap, but I'm using a sock puppet to avoid any possibility of OS deciding that the plates are theirs after all and going after him.
OS map styling is beautiful, but folding maps is the work of devils. You must remember trying to pin sections down so you could see across the paper splits caused by the pure evilness that is folding. It is possible my rage might also be caused by growing up on the point of a four-way boundary in Explorer and Landranger format.
More seriously though, do they no longer teach at least basic navigation skills in school? It still feels, to me, like it is an essential life skill. If only for being able to assess the validity of your phone's answers in the most general case.
I don’t miss folding paper maps but my comment was about the mapping data not the physical medium. Thankfully you can now have OS maps electronically. Best of both worlds.
Though at least paper maps have their unique quality that they still retain their data even after your batteries go flat ;) I joke but actually that can be be invaluable if you’re camping and hiking over multi-days. Also useful if you end up anywhere with low mobile phone coverage.
> More seriously though, do they no longer teach at least basic navigation skills in school? It still feels, to me, like it is an essential life skill. If only for being able to assess the validity of your phone's answers in the most general case.
Good question. I assumed they wouldn’t because the curriculum is pretty jam packed. But after after asking your question to teacher friend, it seems they still do teach map reading.
As a long distance through hiker I find paper maps invaluable. They are lighter than a gps and don’t require batteries. They provide a greater perspective than you can experience through a screen — very important when plotting a route (trail info tends to be quite out or date here in the US). I always carry paper maps.
Beats my days in the army when we had to laminate each map by hand. They were a nightmare to fold after that
And every year people die after they decide to go trekking with only a phone and gmaps, and it runs out of power and they get lost.
If you find yourself in a position needed map data for the UK I would behove you to try OS out rather than defaulting to the regular big-tech names.
The problem with the official government maps is that they are official. If a hiking trail is nothing more than a trodden path through the brush, they won't show it as it's not an official path. If they'd put it on there they'd admit it would be a path and be on the hook for upkeep etc. Google Maps is also really bad for this usecase as I believe they get most of their data from the governments.
So when it comes to really obscure paths which are pretty essential to hiking, the government maps are not as good. OSM shows how it is in reality, the government maps show how they want things to be :)
But like I said, perhaps the UK is different in that sense.
you have the entire country at down to 1:3000, but the best ones are around 1:25000.
It no doubt depends on the application, but for hiking I've found the Harvey BMC maps to be much more usable than the OS maps. The 1:40000 scale is a happy median between the Landranger and Explorer series and printed on plastic rather than laminated they're much easier to handle.
https://www.harveymaps.co.uk/acatalog/british-mountain-maps....
Meanwhile google maps is merrily directing vehicluar traffic down a precipitous footpath to get stuck in the ford at the bottom despite endless attempts at getting them to correct it.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7SJVBX7jxo
https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth-sciences/geography/topographic...
The view varies a lot, and not just because of haze.
When the seeing is clear and the light is good it's just about possible to make out tall buildings. Some days they're clearly visible above the horizon. Other days they seem partially obscured. Every once in a while they seem to float above the horizon rather than on it.
Clearly there's some refraction happening. And if there was anything behind the city - there isn't, for about a hundred miles or so - I might be able to see that too.
There have been a few times where I've wondered if I can, but at that distance it's impossible to be sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hercules
Here are the horizons it computed from the author's location, annotated by myself to align them with the pictures from the blog post: https://imgur.com/a/AlGiDi4 (open that on desktop—imgur serves low-resolution images to mobile browsers)...and unfortunately, what the author believes to be Ireland is actually Anglesey. What he believes to be Anglesey is actually Great Orme. What he believes to be Great Orme is actually Little Orme. Essentially all the peaks he identified are in reality shifted by 1 peak to the north. And the outline of the peaks in his pictures match the outlines of the simulated horizon so there is no doubt: he saw Anglesey (70 miles) and not Ireland (~150 miles).
Here are the parameters I used to generate the first rendering (after filling them in, click "Panorama anzeigen"—direct link: https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne... ):
Breite (°): 53.63638 Länge (°): -2.53707 (these are the GPS coordinates that correspond to the layby where the author parked and made his binocular observations)
Blickrichtung (°): 248 (azimuth, or direction of observation)
Blickfeld (°): 7 (field of view)
Zoomfaktor: 10 (zoom)
And for the second rendering, just change these params (direct link: https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne... ):
Blickrichtung (°): 251.5
Blickfeld (°): 3
Zoomfaktor: 30
When I was a teenager I realized one morning I could see what could be Mont Blanc from my town, but very rarely only on specific mornings when the sun would rise right behind it. But I could never confirm because I saw it of my own eyes, without binoculars, and the right meteorological conditions only reoccured twice in my lifetime to see it. About 20 years later, when I found the udeuschle.de panorama site, I checked and was absolutely delighted when the site confirmed the shape of the peak that I remember so well matched exactly the generated horizon :-) It was at a distance of 130 miles...
EDIT: in order to see Ireland from the blog post author's location, you have to raise the camera at an altitude of about 1400m above ground (set the altitude in the Kamerahöhe field): https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne... (screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/AT0BAnm ) The Irish peak visible is mount Kippure, next to the red mark "Max Dist" which is 159 miles away). It's a site made for desktop browsers. You can hover the mouse pointer over any peak label and it will show the distance to it. If you click it, Google Maps opens to the given peak, etc. A really neat way to explore the Earth. By the way in the above rendering at altitude 1400m you can still recognize Little Orme and Great Orme (at about one third from the image from left). The high-altitude perspective gives an idea of how much farther Ireland is behind these peaks.
EDIT 2: at only about 900m above ground, the author could see Slieve Donard 143 miles away in Ireland (well, Northern Ireland, not the Republic of Ireland): https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne...
Anyway, there are so many little projects out there run by people outside of the whole open source universe and don't even think to put up a Github page. Windows freeware is a big example, as well as a bunch of little hobby websites that probably don't earn any money but provide extremely valuable services. They'll probably just disappear one day when the owner gets bored or dies.
In the mapping department alone, there's this, gpsvisualizer.com, caltopo.com, Orux Maps (although that developer may earn enough from donations to keep it going). Lots of web based tools that are fulfilling a critical role for someone, somewhere, but nobody has a backup copy of the code.
I mean, that's exactly The Small Web of Ye Olde Days, for which HN keeps pining and lamenting every day. Or rather, the cream of that Olde Web, on top of the ‘here's my dog’ home pages.
Deleted Comment
It appears so.
[0] https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/help_01_en.htm
Is there a point on the English mainland terrain that this would apply to. Otherwise you could just go up in a helicopter.
Where is the longest visible line of sight on Earth from point A to point B?
https://travel.stackexchange.com/q/98897/4188
I grew up in Wicklow town and we could see Wales occasionally. If my dad said "you can see Wales today" what he was really saying was "the weather's great today".
Deleted Comment
Pictures with really long lines of sight, the current record is 443km.
298m height where he's viewing from = 61.6km line of sight
610m height of Knockbrack = 88.2km LOS
Total of 149.8km theoretical visible distance.
And in the article he mentions a real distance of 154 miles -- not kilometers. So doesn't sound like there is any chance it was actually Ireland?
Reminders me of this article; https://www.abc57.com/news/skyline-skepticism-the-lake-michi...