Earth and Moon perspectives

The Earth is supposed to be 4 times the diameter of the moon. The distances each direction are the same, depending on which one your standing on but, have you ever noticed that all the photo's of the Earth from the moon the Earth is tiny?
If nothing else, it should be 4 times as big as the full moon from your front porch but seriously, the Earth is always tiny.

I wonder why?

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The best things in life, aren't things.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Interesting topic, you are making a good point.

Nice picture as well. You can see that the earth is clearly bigger than when we see the moon from our planet, but that is not 4 times its size. Perhaps 2 (when I am talking about that picture).

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Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Nibgames

It's optical illusions. Humans aren't exactly the best at "eye balling" magnitudes of size. I'm sure if you took accurate measurements on the photos and applies some deductive mathematics, you'd find that the numbers add up.

Perspective is fun like that. It's also important to keep in mind things like atmosphere on Earth. It distorts what we see outside of it.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

The Earth looks big in that photo to me.

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Aaron's Stuff

Le Chief said:
The Earth looks big in that photo to me.

LoL
Looks more like a high res, telephoto shot.

And as far as perspective goes, I wonder if we could talk NASA into plunking down a palm tree on that crater so we can have a scale to view by?

Seriously though. I have always wondered why the Earth isn't 4 times bigger than it seems in all the moonscape pictures.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

It probably is, if you measured it.

Based on the shot you could figure out the circumference of both objects from the arcs they create, then you could see what magnitude of difference they are based on known distance.

It's called math. No eye-balling necessary :P

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Well, where I come from, "higher" math was using fingers AND toes.
You had to be quite adept to not lose your place while you took off your shoes.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

That's just counting :P

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Uh huh.. Have you ever tried working out an equation with only your digits?
It ain't the easiest critter out there to skin.

First of all, ain't ever body borned with the same amount of digits.
Second, thems that have the same number of digits, well the kinda have this club you gotta join up with and, if'n you cain't join up, it gets real hard to do your numbers right.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Of course I did ... when I was 7. You have to be able to do it in your head later on, it'll take forever if you don't. Also, paper helps. It's more reliable than fingers ever could be.

Anyway that's still just counting.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

sighs
In my head?... sighs again

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The best things in life, aren't things.

This topic is going nowhere, is it?

I think the answer doesn't really matter (anymore).

We came up with a few theories that may or may not be right. We also don't know if most of the images have been resized or anything.

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Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Nibgames

Is there something I'm not understanding? It looks like the photo was taken ON the moon, so its closer to the camera than Earth is, I'm sorry, there must be something i don't get?

tornados2111 said:
Is there something I'm not understanding? It looks like the photo was taken ON the moon, so its closer to the camera than Earth is, I'm sorry, there must be something i don't get?

Heh, it's about that on most pictures taken on the moon, the earth doesn't look that big at all, while it should be about 4 times bigger.

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Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Nibgames

Around here, topics often flicker and die spasmodically.
The purpose of the topic.
Depending upon which surface you are standing upon, the distances are the same. The Earth is 4 times the size as the moon. Why is it then that the Earth does not occupy 4 times the sky of the moon?
I am quite sure it does. I am positive it does but never does any picture depict it being so.

At this time the general consensus is, we don't have anything to compare it to excepting the horizon of the moon. Since only one of us can do math in his head, no one has the ability to work out "Horizon +/- Distance x perspective = actual size"

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Niborius said:

tornados2111 said:
Is there something I'm not understanding? It looks like the photo was taken ON the moon, so its closer to the camera than Earth is, I'm sorry, there must be something i don't get?

Heh, it's about that on most pictures taken on the moon, the earth doesn't look that big at all, while it should be about 4 times bigger.

I googled it and found that the Earth is 356,334 kilometres away from the moon. Perhaps thats why it doesn't look 4 times bigger? I can say that Its so far away, I can't imagine it, thats why I think theres that possibility that it IS 4 times bigger, because I don't have anything saying otherwise(because its so incredibly far away). I think that it doesn't make any sence to look at a picture and judge, as Crono said, it can be an illusion.

Ps I hope I'm not melting people's foreheads from facepalming at me

The first issue is you're thinking the way the moon looks from Earth is how big the moon actually looks from Earth ... in reality, the atmosphere on Earth distorts that image making it appear larger or smaller (or even different colors). And it changes based on where you are on the planet!

The moon has no atmosphere, meaning that the image of the Earth from the moon is accurate.

The second issue is ... you're eyeballing it! I guarantee you can't hang a picture gravitationally straight just by eyeballing it (try it then check with a level I guarantee your brains idea of symmetry is not actually correct ... no one's is) Therefore, you can't just be like "it doesn't look 4 times bigger", of course it doesn't ... just like the picture doesn't look crooked, or the road looks straight. Or the moon looks massively smaller. It's all an optical illusion based on how your brain figures images out combined with how the light actually travels.

I didn't say I could do THIS calculation in my head ... unless I keep it in terms of Pi :P ... I was talking in general. Also consider, Orpheus ... you never said you were talking about the equation that'd be required to figure this out. You just said ... I do math on my fingers, and sometimes toes (which is still just counting).

Anyway, most geometry problems are difficult to do in your head ... especially considering you'd need to measure the image :P

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Humor + Conversation = topic continues.

(I don't really care about the mechanics involved. It was just really quiet here so I added something that might/might not instigate a conversation)

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I'm wondering how close to the surface of the moon that photo was taken.

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Aaron's Stuff

Le Chief said:
I'm wondering how close to the surface of the moon that photo was taken.

Neil Armstrong stepped out the back door of the Eagle to take a whizz and said "Whoa, I gotta get me one of those"

And he took the pic.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Le Chief said:
I'm wondering how close to the surface of the moon that photo was taken.

It's from Apollo 8, so it has to be from orbit. It's something like 70 miles from the surface. Lagrange points are usually pretty far away ... by normal travel standards, anyway.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

sighs
So, no whizz?
Dangit.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Yeah. To me it seemed like it was taken at head level from the surface but after closer inspection it actually looks pretty far off the surface of the moon (the surface doesnt look grainy/fine) hence why the Earth may appear small?

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Aaron's Stuff