Celestial Theodolite
The celestial theodolite (CT) is a proposed method for verifying Earth's curvature by recording the time that a star is occulted by a terrestrial object of known distance and known relative elevation.
Method
As described by roohif:
Basically they record the time that a star is occluded behind a mountain, perform some fuckery in Stellarium to get an angle, then they compare that angle to the raw, flat Earth trig.
List of globe earth assumptions
The CT method as proposed by flerfs uses several globe earth assumptions and calculations, including:
- The distance between the observer and the mountain (see: haversine formula)
- The predicted altitude angle of the star
- The amount of astronomical refraction[1]
- Stellarium being accurate whatsoever, given it uses globe earth to make predictions
This list is a confirmation of the First Law of Flerf.