UKC

I suppose it must be possible in the right conditions but I'm struggling proving to myself. I took this shot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/65978326@N07/6009241286/sizes/l/in/photostream... earlier in the year looking roughly WSW from Dog Hill above Oldham. This image is a crop of a much bigger picture (200mm lens on a Canon 5d FWIW). You can clearly see a v-notch in the skyline, and on the left of the notch a sharp slope leading to a bobbly crest.

Anyone any ideas? 80 miles (ish) at 600 metres up - is that feasible? Its such a long way away. Its def. not the Clwyd Hills which are further left again in the original.

In reply to telemark:
I have a small piece of land above Oldham at 1100 ft elevation and you can quite definitely see Tryfan from there. And the Wrekin, Long Mynd, Cadair Berwyn, Moel Siabod and the rest of the main Snowdonia summits.

In reply to telemark:


Yes, easily, and that would indeed appear to be it.

In reply to telemark: I used to deliver to a farm at Farmborough,near Bath where you could regularly see the Severn Bridges and the Brecon Beacons but one clear day I could see the unmistakable skyline of the Malvern Hills,I dont know how far this is but its a long way.

In reply to telemark: doesn't make sense to me. If it is WSW from Oldham it is ENE from tryfan to oldham. But if you go ene from tryfan you have the whole of the carneddau blocking the view.

If it where tryfan and presumabbly the V to the right is ogwen valley the photo would have been taken from the ESE

In reply to telemark: I've just lined it up on Memory Map and it's easily possible. I can't quite decide the line of sight, but it seems to be somewhere over Craig Wen/Creigiau Gleision/Llyn Cowlyd. The high Carneddau are not in the way at all.

In reply to Mike Peacock:

Agreed, could be the gap of Llyn Cowlyd?

I can't quite decide the line of sight, but it seems to be somewhere over Craig Wen/Creigiau Gleision/Llyn Cowlyd.
Creigiau Gleision is 600m and would be in front of Tryfan so the line of sight would have to be south of Creigiau Gleision. so now your talking about a bearing of 090 or more from tryfan. using google that looks like it takes you out over Ruthin and out towards Leek. Well south of Oldham

In reply to telemark:


Fabulous picture, thanks for sharing

In reply to telemark:

I'm impressed. I knew you could see the Carneddau from the quarries in Horwich, because I have, but this is something else.

In reply to telemark: where exactly did you take the photo?



I find it very atmospheric. Almost like you are spying on it. Strange feeling I cant explain.

In reply to telemark: Yes, perfectly possible.
At 600m you could see the horizon 87.5km away. However, you're looking at a hill which pokes up. So you wouldn't quite see the base of the hill, but you'd see most of it.


Are there no sailors here?!!!

In reply to telemark: viewfinder panoramas seems to back you up. there is no panorama for dog hill but the projection for black hill which is a little higher but roughly the same direction shows an outline unmistakeably similar to your photo. v useful site
I like your photo too

In reply to thegoatstroker: oops forgot the link http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/panoramas/ENGP/BLACK%20HILL.png

In reply to telemark: Thanks folks. Interesting discussion. The photo was taken from the Brushes Clough car park, a little way down the hill from the the top of Dog Hill; something like SD 951 100. And looking at the map more like 200 metres up not 600 - 600 feet then. The WSW-ish bearing was very approximate and guessed after the event when I discovered just what I'd got a picture of.

The image I posted is blown up to 2000 pixels from 1000 pixels of a 5600 pixel original, then I converted it to mono to make it all a bit clearer - the original is all orange and yellow sunset - very moody but not very informative. It was so clear on the original you can clearly see the ribs between the two arches on the Runcorn Bridge as well as two 737s circling over Liverpool airport!

Looking at Google Earth and the like I wasn't sure if the moors to the north east of Tryfan wouldn't effectively block my view of it but I can't think of anything else that looks faintly like it in the same area.

Needless to say I haven't seen a view like it since - not for nothing did they put put cotton mills in Oldham for the moisture. Next winter I'll make the effort to go the top of the hill one cold morning and see what I can see.

Just how many counties can you see the Wrekin from?

So there you have it - next time you're on Grooved Arete give us a wave!

In reply to telemark: This is the original, well cropped full width 3:1 anyway: http://www.flickr.com/photos/65978326@N07/6009665042/sizes/l/in/photostream...

In reply to telemark:

A great shot.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

PS. My brother took some shots of Snowdon from the top of Harborough Rocks on a very clear evening last winter.

In reply to telemark:

Clearly Tryfan, & interesting to realise the line of sight works.

Outstanding image, by the way, amazing sky.

In reply to telemark:

Great stuff, I've got some shots of Snowdonia from The Roaches, but nothing like as clear as this. What was the date?

In reply to telemark:

In such a vast flatness, Fiddlers Ferry is so big its visible from space. NASA had to photoshop it out of photos taken by the apollo astronaughts so people didnt think they faked the moon landings.

Great photo, stunning.

In reply to Adam Long: Middle of Feb this year. I think it was the first time the sun had come out since the new year. Felt like it anyway.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth: Wow, I would love to see that pic!

In reply to stevev:

Then it must be through the Llyn Cowlyd gap to the north then, as Batcloud says. It is quite clearly Tryfan.

In reply to telemark:

That photo is amaising. I cant stop looking at it.

In reply to browndog33:

John's away in America at the moment. I'll ask him to look it out when he gets back.

In reply to telemark:

love that shot. i like the grainy quality with the mtns in the background but the strange sight of electricty pylons!

In reply to thegoatstroker:
I reckon the Blackstone Edge panorama is closer to Dog Hill.
Besides, you can't actually see more than 400 metres in any direction from the top of Black Hill. The panorama seems to be speculation.

In reply to Tom Valentine: How about this one from Crompton Moor: http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/gallery/gb/Crompton.html

In reply to deepstar:

About 60 miles - you must be quite high though?

In reply to Mike Peacock:
Agreed. That can't be anything other than Tryfan north ridge. What else would have a profile like that? But it looks as though it had a background of cloud so that it showed up more.
As to long-distance views, John Temple showed me a photo he took of Kilimanjaro from Mount Kenya; the curvature of the Earth was clearly visible.

In reply to telemark:

I didn't believe the replies at first, as it's a heck of a distance (over 80 miles) so have put it into some rather useful software I have...

The land profile between your grid ref, and the summit of Tryfan:
http://www.petersheppard.com/public/ukc/tryfan-oldham.gif

You can see it's slightly out at the Oldham end, but if standing on the plaeau slightly West of the GR, you'd see it.

This as a map of the above, combining OpenStreetMap with space shuttle radar height data:
http://www.petersheppard.com/public/ukc/tryfan-oldham.jpg

What you should be able to see from the transmitter on Dog Hill:
http://www.petersheppard.com/public/ukc/oldham-view.gif

If anyone really wants to play, there's some KML files to load the images as overlays into Google Earth here:
http://www.petersheppard.com/public/ukc/

In reply to petersheppard: How come you just happen to have 'Useful Software' that has space shuttle data and the like just so you can see 'what can you see from...'?

Really cool projections though

In reply to antwan:

Radio network planning software. The Shuttle Radar Topography Mapping data is all open source.

Takes quite a while to get the software set up and learn it though - and you have to define the physical properties of your network, map bounds, and base stations before it will even start to display anything.

In reply to petersheppard: Now this is getting proper scientific - good stuff. I was trying to get Google Earth to do this but clearly had no data like this.

You first land profile doesn't look like it would give me as much of Tryfan North Ridge as I could actually see which was between 2/3 and 3/4 of the full ridge at a guess. Is that just a facet of the vertical scale on your diagram or is it on a slightly different bearing from mine (248 degrees on Google Earth)? Yours give me the top third of Tryfan, and I think I photographed more than that.

Then the picture of what you should be able to see from Dog Hill - bearing in mind I was a couple of hundred feet down from the top of Dog Hill, I could actually see Tryfan, Bristly Ridge, some of the Glyders and a little bit of Crib Goch heading up into the mists over Snowdon which is a (very) little more than your prediction.

Is it possible there was atmospheric refraction going on that evening? How would that work? The sky was pretty clean - it had just stopped raining across the north west that day so there was none of the usual muck over Manchester. It was pretty cold though, maybe 8 degrees. Would that explain the amount of the North Ridge I could see compared with your prediction?

Still I'm amazed what can be done with the available data - good effort!

In reply to telemark:

I think the suggestion of refraction is a very interesting one. Perhaps an expert who knows about this may be able to contribute something here. It is certainly very surprising just how much of the North Ridge one can see - as you say, as much as 3/4 of it.

In reply to telemark:
Some crazy ones for the cheviot.
http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/panoramas/ENG/CHEVIOT.GIF

Would have thought you'd need exceptional conditions to see lochnagar.

Best I've reliably seen are the pentlands from Macdui.(80+ miles)

In reply to Mike_Watson_99:
Lochnagar from The Cheviot seems a big ask. At 111 miles it must be one of viewfinderpanoramas biggest claims.

But I spent 20 years explaining to my dad that you couldn't see Snowdon from Saddleworth. The year after he died I realised I was wrong.

In reply to telemark:

For a long time I was convinced you could see the Malvern Hills from the top of the hill behind Lyme Park (and the top of Werneth Low) - looking at the height data suggests that it is at least possible so maybe, once I've had a proper play with the data, I can be vindicated once and for all!

Interesting thread this...

Cheers,

PP.

In reply to telemark:

If you can give an accurate (preferably 8-figure) grid reference and altitude in metres, I can re-run it.

The "what you can see" was based on SD951091 at circa 270m.

In reply to petersheppard: Should really carry a GPS with me for landscapes ... Anyway, my GPS gives a GR of SD9510 1003, and thinks it was at 256m which feels 10-15m too low, certainly according to the map. (That'll teach me to believe the OS website!)

My phone thinks it was at 53 35 12 N 2 4 30 W, and Google Earth egrees with it to within a second or two.

It'll be interesting to see just how much the new prediction differs from the first one with that relatively small change in GR.

Amazing how much innocent entertainment can be had from a 30 pixel-high mountain ...