Why does it look like the moon follows you?

Answer 1

Because of it's distance when compared to objects in the foreground.
You can see the same principal in the house across the street.
Compare the location of the neighbour's house to a tree or fencepost in your front yard. When you move your head sideways, the house appears to move with you when seen against the foreground object.
In the case of the Moon, the effect is much more pronounced because of the great distance involved. Now, just about everything in your field of view is foreground when compared to the Moon.
There is a principal involved here called "Parallax". It gives us our 3D vision. Because the image seen by each eye is shifted slightly when compared to items in the foreground, the brain converts it to 3D. But the brain has to learn to do this. Newborn babies have no depth perception. It must be learned through practice.
Hope this helps.

Adolph

Answer 2

The precise word for the illusion you're seeing is "parallax."

As you move from one viewpoint to another, the closer an object is to you, the greater its observed position will change in relation to the objects behind it. As others have said, you can easily see this while traveling in a car: Things nearby such as houses and mailboxes will move by very quickly compared with distant tree lines. Likewise, even the distant trees will change position much more rapidly than an object like the moon, which is 230,000 miles away.

Note that even the moon will eventually change its position in relation to the stars behind it, assuming that you move far enough. Then you can calculate the distance to the moon by triangulation. The same is true of the sun, and even distant stars, though the effect is so tiny that you need extremely precise measurements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax

Answer 3

It's called optical illusion. An optical illusion is always characterized by visually perceived images that, at least in common sense terms, are deceptive or misleading. Therefore, the information gathered by the eye is processed by the brain to give, on the face of it, a percept that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. A conventional assumption is that there are physiological illusions that occur naturally and cognitive illusions that can be demonstrated by specific visual tricks that say something more basic about how human perceptual systems work.

Answer 4

I concur with Tham153. A very large object, very far away, always looks like it is following you. This optical illusion is created by the fact that when the object is large and distant, it will appear the same from many, many different stationary locations. So when you are on the move, you are assuming those many locations continuously, giving the illusion that the object is moving too.

Answer 5

Ask Linda Bach!

Answer 6

Because you are paranoid.

And the moon is watching you, so you had better be good.

Answer 7

optical illusion.
look in wikipedia for more info.