Flat Earth Insanity: Analysis: Dogcam footage - Does the "hotspot" proves a Flat Earth?

The "Dogcam" footage was from a balloon sent up by Ed Oates and Marcus Lewer with cameras provided by www.dogcamsport.co.uk (now defunct). It is well-documented as having a view towards the Baltic Sea (it even says so in the video). The launch site was from Wasbeck (near Neumünster), also stated in the video. Launch date was 19 April 2011 around 0559 hours.

This is the edited version posted by the "dogcam" account on YouTube:

There are two cameras on-board. One of them is a Fish-Eye lens and the other is, at least, fairly rectilinear. I will ONLY be discussing the images from the non-fish-eye, rectilinear camera -- and we can tell it is fairly low distortion both by comparing the lower-altitude images with the higher altitude images and by looking for changes in the shape of the horizon curvature (the curvilinear "Fish-Eye" lens warps the horizon different amounts depending on where it crosses the lens).

At the 4:13 mark we can see the Time is 0711 hours, Altitude 23,800 meters at 106 minutes into the flight - and about 14 seconds later we can see the "Hotspot" that has Flat Earthers all hot and bothered -- as the aptly named p-brane muses:

Figure 1. comment by p-brane

And here is the relevant image:

Figure 2. dogcam footage 4:27 showing "Hotspot"

SURELY, this time we will prove a "Nearby Sun" -- right? Well, once we reach maximum altitude we are treated to this view...

Figure 3. 1080p frame from dogcam with curvature highlighted, near max altitude

My Magic 8 Ball is saying "All signs point to No". Here is some very good analysis of the curvature aspect in another video: Dogcam analysis.

The first glaring error in p-brane's statement is that the CLOUDS are doing anything. It's not reflecting off the clouds, the clouds cleared away (you can compare with earlier footage) and exposed the Baltic Sea.

From here we should be done -- the Ocean surface is wavy and reflections simply work this way.

Figure 4. How Reflections Work

But we can take this one step further and ask -- where WAS the sun at this time?

Was it indeed over the Baltic Sea shining down like a "Spot Light" and creating a hotspot like a lamp?

Let's verify our location first, looking at 7:14 mark we can see more of the land & water:

Figure 5. dogcam 7:14 mark looking East to Swinoujscie, Poland

We can see Swinoujscie, Poland (which is just over the border) off in the distance which is East of Wasbek, Germany.

Figure 6. Google Earth view showing Wasbek and Swinoujscie

Now let's put those two together and see if we have a match. Looking at Google Maps we see:

Figure 7. Google Maps view of Swinoujscie

We can convert this into a mask:

Figure 8. Mask of Swinoujscie Area

and rotate (North is the top of the Google Map and to the Left in our Dogcam image since we are looking East), shrink, and overlay it with our image from 7:14 (you can view an animated version of this in Sly's analysis video).

Figure 9. Overlay of Swinoujscie area and Dogcam footage.

Ok, so we know we're over Wasbek, Germany on April 19th, 2011 looking East at around 0711 hours, Swinoujscie is roughly 160km away and the reflections we are seeing are off the water.

Final piece of the Puzzle, was the Sun anywhere NEAR Swinoujscie at 0711 hours?

Figure 10. Sun location at 0711 hours: Latitude: 11° 03' N, Longitude: 102° 19' E

This places the Sun overhead just off the coast of Cambodia!

So riddle me this... How is the Sun directly over a spot about 9000 km away from the "Hotspot"?

Figure 11. Google Earth view of where the Sun was overhead (9000km away)

This is exactly what we would expect on a Globe.

So we have clear evidence of curvature and we have the data to show a local "Hotspot" is an absurd concept that some Flat Earther just pulled out of their arse.