December 1, 2024
It was really, really, clear at sunrise, so Martin decided to see whether we could see Pike’s Peak from the south deck.
Here’s the theoretical situation. From where we’re at, Pike’s Peak should be at 6.3° east of due south of us.
The rest of the theoretical situation, could we see it from this distance? From Pike’s Peak to us is right at 100 miles as the crow flies, but I put the 130 miles as the road goes into https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/earth-curvature just to be pessimistic.
Yes, it should easily be visible, with only the bottom 651 feet below the curvature of the earth.
Martin carefully shot this with the tile grout bands visible in the foreground. The architect designed the house to be perfectly aligned with true north so he could calculate the false roof and real roof positions to keep the summer sun out and get all the winter sun in.
So, flipping the lines from the map and placing the due south line on the tile band Martin carefully lined the camera up with, we can’t see any peak??
Putting the satellite imagery on the map explains it. We are too far west to see Pike’s Peak. The front range is between us and Pike’s Peak!