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How is it that Earth on the Moon's horizon looks smaller than the Moon on Earth's horizon? When the moon is on the horizon on earth, it looks enormous (ie https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/1*oiA6GCepn7GthCt...)


It's a visual illusion dependent on the focal length of the lens being used and any foreground objects that are on the studio backlot.


Yup, even in person i.e without zooming, the moon looks way smaller when in the middle of the sky; yet on the horizon amongst man made structures it can look bigger... measure it with your thumb and it's the same size - context changes our perception.


We dont see reality, we see what our brains need to focus on to eat another day.


We don't know the field of view of the lens (or crop) being used here, so you can't say anything about the apparent size of objects. With a smaller FoV lens, or even just a tighter crop, the Earth could look significantly larger.

If you took a normal snapshot of a scene on Earth with a typical 55 degree field of view lens (e.g. your smartphone's 1X lens) I think you'd be quite surprised by how small the Moon appears in your photo.




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