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.
> 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...
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.
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.
Here's the English Wikipedia article (although it doesn't mention the Föhn specifically): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_refraction
Of course, there is another "magnification effect" which photographers like to use: perspective distortion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_distortion#Example...). The reason why the mountains seem to be right behind the Frauenkirche in those publicity photos I mentioned (e.g. https://www.technik-testen.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Ad...) might have a little bit to do with the Föhn, but most of it is because the photo is taken from far away and zoomed in.
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 ;-)
Or is this just an elaborate silhouette?
Is that a difference? I don't know.
Lets take it to its farthest extent: can you take a picture of a black hole?
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.
[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/
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.