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The Moon

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  • 05-12-2006 8:39pm
    #1
    Victor
    Registered Users Posts: 78,436 ✭✭✭✭


    I was able to get a really good look at he moon just after moon rise / sun set. Nice golden brown colour. Using binoculars (8 x 25 or some such), rather than appearing as a perfect circle, it seemed to have many straight facets.

    Illusion or not? If it is, where does the illusion occur?

    I also saw mercury, it had landing lights on. ;)


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    #2
    SonOfPerdition
    Registered Users Posts: 348 ✭✭SonOfPerdition


    Victor wrote:
    I was able to get a really good look at he moon just after moon rise / sun set. Nice golden brown colour. Using binoculars (8 x 25 or some such), rather than appearing as a perfect circle, it seemed to have many straight facets.

    Illusion or not? If it is, where does the illusion occur?

    Sounds like atmospheric distortion to me, similar to watching the sun set. It's more pronounced when you look at an object near the horizon due to the light passing through lots more athmosphere to your eye.


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    #3
    InFront
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,698 ✭✭✭InFront


    Yeah when the moon is low over the horizon the optical path of the light through the atmosphere is long adn bacause the atmosphere has different temperature and P gradients refraction causes the moons disk to be deformed.


    Edit: Is this what you saw? the website says:
    The long sight-line through a turbulent atmosphere gives rise to the tantalizing optical effects


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