Celestia Forums

I was wondering, the size of the moon as seen from earth (less than 1km from surface) in celestia seems smaller than it is irl, is it because thats not coded yet? or is it some wierd atmosphere magnifieing thing thats making it bigger irl and celestia is showing the true size?

Just think its wierd i can look outside and see the moon a lot bigger than the one in celestia

if its a bug or meant that way no big deal ignore me

The moon's size in Celestia is precisely the correct ratio for the distances involved. Otherwise Celestia couldn't simulate eclipses so accurately.

Remember that when you look out a window, your field of view is quite restricted. As a result, the 0.52 degree width of the moon is occupying a significant fraction of that field of view. Also, when your interest is focussed on a particular object, your effective field of view is narrow, too.

Theres a modern description of this visual effect at http://facstaff.uww.edu/mccreadd/appendix.html

Celestia simulates a 45 degree field of view.
"Objects in the viewscreen are closer than they appear."

Yer, when you look at the moon in the sky, you may think its larger than in Celestia, but compare is with how much other sky that is visible to put it in perspective.

The makeup of our eyes and the way our brain focusses on things means that a lot of empasis is put on the small centre of our feild-of-vision.

Also you get some magnifying effects when viewing the moon the nearer it is to the horizon . a little gravity lovin . Now the question is why do all of those old moon landing shots show such a large a Earth as seen fron teh moon ? Doesn't seem as though the moon's G could account for such an image magnification at the angle shown .

Now the question is why do all of those old moon landing shots show such a large a Earth as seen fron teh moon ? Doesn't seem as though the moon's G could account for such an image magnification at the angle shown .

Maybe I've been hit over the head with a baseball bat (or he has) but couldn't it posibly be from zooming in with the camera?

As far as I know, gravity doesn't play a part in the moon's apparent size.
Here's a page on the subject by the ever-reliable Phil Plait... not strictly the same thing but quite near...

By default it is 45° but you can change it easilly by pressing the shift key and moving the mouse vertically...