[Leica] Re: Full Moon

[George Huczek <ghuczek@sk.sympatico.ca>]

At 11:45 PM 17/12/99 -0500, David E. Strang wrote:
>
>The moon probably has close approaches to the earth at different times of
>the year and
>these close approaches occur at different parts of the world. The large
>apparent size of the moon, like the
>occasional sunset where the object seems to be largeer than normal is due to
>a phenomena related to
>"optical lensing" in the atmosphere. The object viewed at the horizon is
>seen as it passes through the greatest
>layer of atmosphere (from the viewers perspective). The atmosphere acts like
>a lens and magnifies the object's size.
>
The refractive effects are minimal.  The big moon effect is _primarily_ an
optical illusion.  I had to photograph this myself and do some test
comparisons of the image size on the film when the moon is on the horizon
and when it is higher to convince myself of this.