Thanks!
Well the record for the longest photographed line of sight is in the same region as our #3 longest line, at 483km https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/66661-lon... So not far off. And I think that even takes advantage of some favourable refraction. So not only might it be possible to see the longest view. But there may even be longer lines if we were to take into account extreme cases of refraction. Which is certainly something we'd love to try.
Wow, that's an impressive amount of dedication, but I guess you need that if you want to set a world record:
> He monitored weather conditions closely to find the right window and right location. After a lot of travelling he arrived at Aksu village. The village wasn't accessible by car due to snow and ice so he hiked to the summit. After 10 hours of climbing, he stood on the summit with moonlight providing enough light to set up his equipment. At midnight, he recalls that the temperature was around -12°C with winds around 8 m/s. He remained there all night capturing panoramic photos. Before sunrise, the wind picked up to roughly 20-25 m/s and the battle of capturing his world record image began. He planned to capture the image at sunrise to improve contrast and whilst he is pleased with the final result, he is already making plans for his next record-breaking image.
But still, that kinda confirms my observation about the pesky atmosphere: even with optimal weather conditions, he still needed the sun lighting up the sky behind the mountains just before sunrise, otherwise they would have blended in with the sky at the horizon...
This also applies for much shorter distances: despite what the publicity photos suggest, you can't see the Alps from Munich most of the time (or only as slightly darker shapes on the horizon), although they're "only" ~ 75 km away. You need really good weather to see them clearly...
> This also applies for much shorter distances: despite what the publicity photos suggest, you can't see the Alps from Munich most of the time (or only as slightly darker shapes on the horizon)
You won't usually see them from the ground of course but from a couple floors up with a clear line of sight you do see them quite often.
In the northwest of Munich we can see the alps quite often (around 100km from there), and sometimes they appear quite huge. It's due to the Föhn that makes the atmosphere act as a magnifying lens. Interestingly the explanation is not in the English Wikipedia
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%B6hn#Optischer_Vergr%C3%B...
Sure, you can see the mountains only as "slightly darker shapes" as the parent put it but you could identify individual summits I think.
Putting on my pedantic hat, does this qualify as a picture of the mountains? As in, is there any light hitting the mountains, then hitting the film/sensor?
Or is this just an elaborate silhouette?
Is that a difference? I don't know.
Is a silhouette not a "picture"? Perhaps "picture" isn't the best term to quibble over, since it is quite broad (arguably its primary use is referring to paintings or drawings).
But if we instead quibble over the term "photograph," I'd argue that a photograph of a silhouette of a mountain is absolutely a photograph of a mountain. Similarly, I'd argue that X-ray photography is indeed photography.
Its a really interesting question.
Lets take it to its farthest extent: can you take a picture of a black hole?
Or how about this: can you take a photograph of a shadow?
> Wow, that's an impressive amount of dedication, but I guess you need that if you want to set a world record
Dedication, mmm, dedication. Dedication, that’s what you need. If you want to be the best, and if you want to beat the rest. Dedication way you need.
Hopefully that means something to Brits of a certain age ;-)
Roy Castle!
Bingo! Loved that show
funny to know that the record has just been broken, the latest I knew of was by Roberto Antezana, astrophotographer from Universidad de Chile, capturing the Aconcagua (6950m) peak from Cordoba, Argentina, taking advantage of the peak's altitude and the Argentinian pampa (very flat grasslands), and of course, thorough planning + lucky cooperative weather [1] [2]; he was well known before from his long distance photos of the same peak from Valparaiso bay [3], I'm from Valparaiso and the times it was possible to see that peak with the naked eye given some perfect blue sky was truly overwhelming, since then I've been thinking about how to achieve such excursion planning heuristically from topographical data available. Congratulations on your project, I will look more into the technical details but looks amazing, beautiful art and technique!
[1] https://uchile.cl/noticias/205455/astrofotografo-logra-nuevo... [2] https://dalekiewidoki.pl/2025/07/world-record-andes.html [3] https://api.flickr.com/photos/robertoantezana/4994301227/
Do the two points have to be on land? I would think since you can see the ocean from Aconcagua you'd be able to see all the way to the horizon and that would be the longest sightline
Out of the question. The higher up you are the farther the horizon, I wouldn't be surprised if the longest horizon is from Aconcagua. I have been at 18,000' on Kilimanjaro, the view was absolutely stunning. (But we were tourists, not mountaineers, and had no traction gear. At the time that meant progress became impossible very soon after sunrise. Now the ice has retreated so far that you can expect to summit by daylight without traction gear.)
But the longest possible view isn't to the horizon, it is to another point that can see the same spot of horizon on a reciprocal bearing. And ocean has no such points.
I think the main insight is that the ocean horizon arrives quite fast.
I see, that's why the longest are peak-to-peak
ok then, If I read you right, what counts is someone going and doing the actual seeing , VS drawing a line on a topigraphical map. there are groups on another quest flying gliders into the high stratospher riding atmospheric waves rolling up against mountains who might also qualify for setting records for the longest possible views through the atmosphear, they got started buying surplus soviet space suits as that was what made attempts possible.