In which year, month, and days would be the face of the moon so close to the Horizon of the Earth?

Question

I want to take some photos for the moon and I remember that the moon appears so close, large, and brilliant to the horizone of the Earth in some nights. I cannot remember in which month of the year and if it would differs from one location to another location. Can you help me in giving web sites for knowing more about the phases of the moon during the year and the varied distance between the Earth and the Moon?

Answer 1

On perigee, the moon is closest to the earth. On apogee, it is its farthest from earth. This happens every month, so don't worry if you missed it. I found a good site you can go to:

Answer 2

The moon hits the horizon often as the earth rotates in the same way that the sun rises and sets.

However the effect you are on about where the moon looks huge on the horizon is well documented but is unfortunately an optical illusion. Putting "moon illusion" into a search engine will give you lots of references but the one I've included shows a time lapse shot of the moon setting which shows how the moon doesn't actually change it's real size.

As a consequence, because it is an optical illusion, you will see the moon as huge maybe but a camera will just show it the same size wherever you take a shot of it.

I remember the first time I saw this illusion when I had the ideal position to see it, which was where the moon rose over the end of a road which was on a hill with the hill horizon about half a mile away. I'd heard of this before but couldn't believe how big it looked and there's no way you will be able to convince yourself it's an optical illusion or that it's exactly the same size high in the sky.

To get a good shot of the moon you'd be better using a telescope on your digital camera or use a solid tripod with the biggest zoom lens you can find and some extender tubes to give you about 500mm focal length on a standard 35mm SLR.

The same effect also happens with the setting and rising sun but because the sun is generally too bright to look at we don't spot it as easily.

Answer 3

The Moon, sometimes called 'Luna', is a relatively large terrestrial planet-like satellite, whose diameter is about one-quarter of the Earth's. With the exception of Pluto's Charon, it is the largest moon in the Solar system relative to the size of its planet. The natural satellites orbiting other planets are called "moons", after Earth's Moon. The gravitational attraction between the Earth and Moon cause the tides on Earth. The same effect on the Moon has led to its tidal locking: Its rotation period is the same as the time it takes to orbit the Earth. As a result, it always presents the same face to the planet. As the Moon orbits Earth, different parts of its face are illuminated by the Sun, leading to the lunar phases: The dark part of the face is separated from the light part by the solar terminator. Due to their tidal interaction, the Moon recedes from Earth at the rate of approximately 38 mm per year. The Earth's day also lengthens by about 17 µs every year. Over millions of years these tiny modifications can add up to significant changes - during the Devonian period there were 400 days in a year, with each day lasting 21.8 hours.

The Moon may dramatically affect the development of life by taming the weather. Paleontological evidence and computer simulations show that Earth's axial tilt is stabilised by tidal interactions with the Moon.[10] Some theorists believe that without this stabilization against the torques applied by the Sun and planets to the Earth's equatorial bulge, the rotational axis might be chaotically unstable, as it appears to be with Mars. If Earth's axis of rotation were to approach the plane of the ecliptic, extremely severe weather could result, as this would make seasonal differences extreme. One pole would be pointed directly toward the Sun during summer and directly away during winter. Planetary scientists who have studied the effect claim that this might kill all large animal and higher plant life.[11] This remains a controversial subject, however, and further studies of Mars—which shares Earth's rotation period and axial tilt, but not its large moon or liquid core—may provide additional insight.

The Moon is just far enough away to have, when seen from Earth, very nearly the same apparent angular size as the Sun (the Sun is 400 times larger, but the Moon is 400 times closer). This allows total eclipses and annular eclipses to occur on Earth

Answer 4

This basically happens near every full moon, right before dawn or right after sunset.

Answer 5

http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/moon_ap_per.html