This picture took over 10 years for me to take.

• Since the dawn of time, humans have asked the question: "Can I see my house from here?"
• When Imagine Communications moved into a new location at the north end of Waterloo, there was a 6 story parking garage. (It is visible in the background of this photo.)
• When driving home from work, I noticed that you can see one of the Elora water towers from the intersection of Northfield and 86, near where this photo was taken.
• I wondered if you could see the water tower from the top of the parking garage. Unfortunately, we were only allowed to use the first two levels of the garage, so I couldn't get to the top.
• This fall, when my team moved into the new office building in Kitchener, I got a great view from my desk on the 8th floor.
• So naturally, I wondered: Could I see Elora from my desk?

My goal was to find out if there were any hills or other obstacles that would get in the way of the view. After plotting the terrain, I also factored in the potential height of trees. The good news was that there was no hard terrain in between the window and the water tower. The bad news was that there were trees in between.

I realized I could get a better view if I went up to the 11th floor, but I won't be allowed to do that until they finish constructing it. I didn't want to wait so I decided to try taking the photo from the 8th floor.

So, I waited until winter when there would be no leaves on the trees. Then I brought my camera to the office and left it at my desk. Every day I would check the weather to see if the atmosphere was transparent enough and the sun bright enough to maximize my chances of seeing something over 24 km away.

Finally a day came where the air was clear and the sun was out. I opened up the map again to verify exactly which direction I needed to look. I pointed my camera and scanned the horizon. It was hard to make out through the viewfinder, but I thought I saw some structures in the distance. I took a photo and zoomed in on my camera's display to figure out what it was.

To my amazement, I saw wind turbines, cell phone towers, and something that looked distinctively like a water tower. I cross-referenced the map and realized that it was the water tower at the north end of Elora, not the one near my house. I carefully panned my camera over to the right and took another photo. Sure enough, through the trees, I could just barely make out the shape of another water tower. That was the one I wanted! The mission was a success!

Here are some explanations of the images. On a PC, you can hover your mouse cursor over the photo to see the annotations.

• The graph at the top shows the curvature of the Earth (blue), the level of the ground (red), the tops of the trees (yellow), my sight line from the 8th floor (green), and a theoretical sight line if I was allowed to go up to the 11th floor (orange).
• In the photo below that, a cluster of five structures are visible.
• "B" is the water tower at the north end of Elora.
• "C" is a wind turbine approximately 12 km further in the distance from the water tower - almost 37.5 km away from where I was taking the photo from!
• "D" is a cell phone tower about 14 km away.
• "E" is a cell phone tower at the Grand River Raceway in Elora.
• "F" is another wind turbine. It's interesting that these wind turbines are not visible from anywhere in Elora (I checked), because they are over 10km out of town. They are only visible because of the extreme distance that I'm taking the photo from.
• In the photo at the bottom, "A" is the water tower near my house that I was hoping to be able to see from my desk.

In conclusion, even those these pictures aren't the best, and were taken through a thick glass window with no tripod, they are very special to me, and mark the end of a long time wondering if I could see where I live from where I work.

Technical Details: These photos were taken with my Canon 5D Mark II + Tamron 150-600 at 600mm, ISO 800, f/8 for 1/1600th of a second.