California Moonsighting for 'Id al-Fitr 2015

There are two reservations about the lunar visibility plots:
1. They don't provide scientific impossibility of sighting the moon outside the visibility bands. Especially given that the visibility curves seem to differ between moon sighting websites (Moonsighting dot com uses criterion by Syed Khalid Saukat and crescent watch uses Yallop Algorithm)
2. Elevation

My observation:
1. The visibility curves - especially that of Yallop algorithm is accurate for naked eye sighting and moderate telescopes. It's relied upon in Astronomy and you can search up the paper based on this algorithm. The curves however don't take into account high - powered telescopes or radio telescopes which can resolve 2 deg separation between the sun and moon. Also, they don't take into account high altitudes. Having said, it's impossible to sight crescent below the 7 deg danjon limit with naked eye. But if you have powerful optical tools then it has been shown that moon can be sighted with these tools below this limit and hence outside the zones of the visibility maps:

"9 Breaking of Danjon limit
In recent years, some moon observers tried to sight crescents below Danjon limit. In one case James Stamm, from Arizona claimed that he and his assistant could sight Sha’ban 1425 A.H. morning crescent on 13th Oct. 2004 in 6.5 degrees of separation angle by an 8 inch telescope. However,this report has been doubted by some authorities (Sinnott 2006). A German astronomer/photographer has made considerable efforts in infrared imaging and detection of moon crescent less than 7 degrees of separation angle. On 15th June 2007, Martin Elsässer with the help of image processing succeeded to take photos from moon crescent less than 5 degrees of separation angle, in daylight. On 15th May 2008, he succeeded to detect the moon crescent 5 minutes after conjunction. His success not only showed that moon crescents with a separation angle less than Danjon limit are formed, but also questioned the Danjon idea on moon crescent formation (Elsässer 2008). On 14th April 2010, a professional astronomical photographer named “Thierry Legault”, using a similar method, succeeded to register moon crescent with a separation angle of 4.5 at the time of conjunction. Having proved that moon crescent is formed at separation angles below Danjon limit (Legault 2010).

10 Conclusion and suggestion
The present research shows that Danjon limit is about 5 degrees. It emphasizes on the importance of shadows of the moon’s mountains and libration effects for prediction of visibility of very thin crescents. Although reports of moon crescent sighting below Danjon limit are low in number, it is suggested that attempts be made to observe and photograph moon crescents below Danjon limit with the help of powerful observation tools. In case of confirmation, we can use the corrected limit as the minimum condition for moon crescent visibility."

Source: "Study of Danjon limit in moon crescent sighting" by Amir Hasanzadeh (University of Tehran, Iran)

2. Elevation is only an issue if you are higher than 10,000 ft above sea level! Because of the change in atmospheric conditions (This was discussed in Dr. Youssef Ismail's article's comment thread). Besides, there were another group of seasoned observers observing at the local mountains at a higher altitude who didn't see the crescent (Source: See the comment section of the article "What happened?" by Dr. Youssef Ismail). Not to mention Shaykh Fasih admitted that 6 (including himself) out of 10 people said they observed the moon (Source: www.central-mosque.com/index.php/Civil/california-moon.html ).

My understanding is that these visibility plots are accurate for naked eye sightings and low powered telescopes for sighting the new crescent for altitudes within several thousand feet from sea level. As for what the brothers actually saw, aside from possible smoke trails and other objects, did anyone hear about "Superior Mirage" as opposed to "Inferior Mirage" that you see on the road on hot summer days? I think we should google "Superior Mirage of the sun" on google images. Because, under certain conditions one can be hoodwinked into thinking there is a crescent close to the sun - something pointed out in Dr. Youssef Ismail's comment thread. Not to mention the crescent actually changes orientation, which didn't match the description from the sighters for the crescent of the summer season (see Dr. Youssef Ismail's comment thread).

Lastly, I was wondering if any scholar in the past delved into why only the shahada of a moonsighter is enough? What I mean is whether they gave their reasoning for minimum level of witnesses and testification was enough based on the social and cultural context?

I ask this because pre-modern societies were greatly in tune, via observation, with the cosmic realities at play over their night sky. They maintained time not by watches but by looking at the sun, moon, and the stars (yes you can tell time by looking at stars - I learned that last week!). They knew when different conjunctions, especially sun an moon, were about to happen, etc. (See Shaykh Hamza's book Cesarean moon births - linked from his article: Lunacy of Lunar Sightings ). They also knew the orientations of the crescent (which changes based on season - see link above) through years of visual observations. Lastly, the societies were small - everyone knew everyone else, so they also had a rough idea of their visual prowess and knowledge of astronomical observations.

So, what I am trying to get at is, shouldn't we be asking more precise questions to moon sighters (instead of asking generic questions about whether they are trustworthy!) so that we can verify their knowledge of:
1. Observational astronomy 
2. Physical knowledge of lunar visibility plots (Danjon limits, etc.), and
3. Optics - including their knowledge of various types of mirage, especially that of astronomical mirages ?

Something for all of us to think about!