Quote:
Originally Posted by -George-
Why does the moon look larger on the horizon? Is there some natural magnification happening by the atmosphere in that position? Would not the telescope 'magnify' the already magnified image and thus it should be bigger?
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As Kevin has said, it is an optical illusion. In other words, it is our brains making it appear larger, not atmospheric effects or anything else, just our stupid brains
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion
Just to make things interesting: "
In fact, the Moon appears about 1.5% smaller when it is near the horizon than when it is high in the sky, because it is farther away by nearly one Earth radius. "
'Appears' is perhaps the wrong word to use in the above quote.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba.../#.UzzO4fmSyCk