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Old 09-19-2019, 12:37 PM   #27
William Cloud Hicklin
Loremaster of Annúminas
 
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Join Date: Oct 2006
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William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Assuming that Numenoreans have RW human vision or close to it (and they seem not to have Elvish eyes, since Aragorn is always using Legolas as his binoculars), then their angular resolution is approx one arc-minute or 1/60 of a degree. That's why you can't look up at the moon and see flags and old lunar rovers there, and why the military relies on radar to pick up approaching aircraft that the Mk 1 eyeball hasn't a chance of seeing before it's too late..

So, even if we assume absolutely clear air without haze or turbulence, the maximum distance at which an unaided human eye could pick out a tower of ~ 30m diameter would be around 100 kilometers.
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