Great video. It captures a lot about a great ELR trip even without the refraction education. The situation couldn't have been any better for a don't believe everything you see lesson.
I also shoot in the hills. Refraction happens whenever there is a change in density. At a common elevation, air density changes can come from differences in temperature or moisture content. If there was an asphalt road across a dirt field, there will be a column of hot air above that road. Moving to the hills, a steep hillside facing the sun will be warmer than the shady side. Similarly, if we shoot from a meadow across a valley, there will also be a relatively large change in air temperature along the LOS. Natural terrain won't be square to the LOS giving horizontal refraction shifts. Those warm columns of air will also tilt in different directions with the wind.
What is normally referred to as mirage, shimmering and loss of clarity, starts at higher temperatures in hilly terrain than it does for the desert shooters. The spots I shoot had major fires go through 8 years ago. After the fire, mirage started about 10 degrees sooner using the shooting position temperature as the reference. Which generally isn't the temperature I type into my solver.
On the LRF - My take on it is if refraction is going on, the visible light we're aiming with will not travel the same path as the ranging light. It doesn't matter which one is closer to right or what the particular refraction scenario is, the sighting mechanism is effectively gone. We won't know what we're aiming at.
️. It has been very reliable.
