Why does the moon appear at different angles on the horizon in different parts of the country?
552110
The moon appears at different angles because like any given solid object, everyone is looking at it from different positions, just like three people looking at a car.\n\nPlace a ball in a dark room, place a torch on a piece of furniture across the room from it. Now place another ball somewhere mid distance, switch the torch on, and walk around the room. Notice how the shadows shape on the furthest ball alters.\n\nNow you have to remember that we are on that ball nearest the torch, and we are walking around the curve. The shape and the angle will change even more just depending on where you are on that ball.
1166386
The shape of the moon does not actually change, but it is the shadow of the earth that gives the illusion. The moon revolves around the earth due to which we have full moon, no moon and half moon periods as it travels betweeen the shadow of the earth. During the period from no moon to full moon, the earth is in between the moon and the sun due to which the earth's shadow falls directly on the moon and thus we cannot see the illuminated part of the moon.As the earth graduallly moves away from the position, we can see the illuminated part of the moon which appears in the shape of a crest.  Also due to the non existence of atmosphere on the moon, there is distinct difference in the illuminated and the dark part of the moon. During the period from full moon to no moon, it again moves from the shadow of the earth and thus at one point is completely overshadowed by the earth and doing the disappearing act.
113023
It is just an optical illusion. Your brain apparently compares the moon (and the sun) with familiar objects around it and that makes it appear larger. If you took pictures and measured, you would see that there is no difference (we had to do this in school in grade 8, and there definitely is no size difference). \n\nThere are refraction effects when the moon and the sun is low in the horizon that distort their shape so they do not look spherical, or are no longer simply connected, or exhibit green flashes etc. But the size does not vary appreciably if they are high enough in the sky to be seen as circular disks.
579246
A full moon occurs when the sun and the moon are on opposite sides of the Earth, so a full moon WILL rise at ABOUT the same time the sun sets.
405607
The phases of the moon occur due to its relative position to us and the sun. The sun always shines on half of the moon (except on the rare occassion when the earth is in the way causing a lunar eclipse). If the moon is behind the earth, we see it as a full moon as we can see all of the lit side. When the moon is beside the earth, we see half the lit side and half the side in shadow, which appears to us as a half moon. When it's in front of the earth its a new moon which isn't visible as we can only see the side of the moon in shadow. In between the stages we see the crescent waxing and waning moons.
62251
You could ask the same about the sun (although the angle of Earth's rotational axis makes things somewhat more complicated in the polar regions). The moon is simply so far from earth that your position on earth's surface becomes secondary. Half a day the earth's rotation will bring you onto the side where the moon is, half a day it will bring you onto the opposite side.\n\nI know from personal experience that the moon remains visible and fairly high on the horizon even beyond the arctic circle when the sun won't rise above the horizon any more. Apparently earth's rotational axis is (almost?) perpendicular to the plane in which earth and moon circle one another.
591541
While refraction by the atmosphere is too small to affect the apparent diameter of the moon except perhaps when it is within one diameter of the horizon (and in this case, the moon will appear stretched a bit in the direction perpindicular to the horizon) it does appear larger to our brains when on the horizon because we see it in reference to distant large objects.  Gives the impression of it looking bigger, however if you could look straight up at the moon, and see a bunch of trees a mile up in sky between you and the moon it would look just as large as when it is near the horizon.  (If you ever do see this by the way, seek shelter or psychiatric treatment immediately!)\n\nThe moons orbit IS elliptical, however, and at times will be closer to the earth than others.  This phenomenon is called "lunation" and there is a great still and a gif animation of this at the Astronomy Picture of the Day.\n\nhttp://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041021.html\nhttp://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991108.html\n\nThe moon's surface brightness (brightness per area) also varies with phase. Because larger particles tend to reflect a bit more light directly back at the light source than in other directions (look up "Mie" scattering) a given bit of the moon will appear brighter when the earth is in the direction of the sun as seen from the moon. (All three are in a line with the Earth more or less between). This occurs when the moon is full or near full. This brightening might make the moon look larger.
344029
The moon's got gravity too, and like the Earth pulls the moon, the moon pulls on the Earth's waters. Depending on where the moon is, you get different tides. Kinda like if you move a magnet in a circle around a paperclip. The paperclip will move in different directions depending on where the magnet is.
63495
Techtonic scientist who study continental drift (which is ongoing) believe that at one time long ago almost all land masses were collected into a huge circle called Pangea (meaning all land).  When it split up to drift into present locations it was probably pure coincidence why pointy parts of land masses pointed one way rather than another.  My pet theory is that luna tides (that affect the oceans and earth's crust) may have biased the direction of "cracks" in the land masses, but perhaps I'm just a luna-tick.  Incidentally the term lunatic originally applied to scientists who met once a month when they could travel at night with the aid of the light of a full moon.
111961
It is called the Moon Illusion. When the moon is closer to the horizon it looks larger than when it is high in the sky.\n\ncheck this out: http://facstaff.uww.edu/mccreadd/
98413
the moon generally appears larger when it is near the horizon. It works by the fact that you have something to compare it too. The same moon that night way up high in the sky obviously would look smaller as there is nothing to compare it too.\n\nThere is one fool proof way to prove this. When the moon is near the horizon stick out your arm and cover the moon with the tip of your pinkie. Do it again when the moon is overhead, you'll soon see it is the same size.
394180
It has to do with refraction due to different densities of air-in cooler climates, there tends to be much warmer air near the surface, with colder air in higher altitudes, plus the colder air is much more dense, so acts like a magnifying lense- The very largest moon-views are always seen close to the horizon because of this.
1016790
It's because your mind sees the moon in proportion to landscape features when it is low.  It's kind of an optical illusion - it's not really bigger but your mind interprets it as bigger.
331139
I live in Alaska, so pay attention.  The earth is tilted; it doesn't spin at a right angle to the sun.  In summer, the north pole is tilted toward the sun, and as a result, the sun appears to circle the horizon, never actually setting.  In the winter, the opposite occurs.  The sun may peak over the southern horizon, but further north it never really rises.  In spring and fall, there is no difference from the rest of the U.S.
800776
1.  Longer shadows\n2.  The moon's gravitational pull and the sun's gravity also\n3.  The sun\n4.  counterclockwise, west, east\n5.  D\n6.  The Earth's Rotation\n7.  The earth is at a slant compared to it's solar revolution, so the earth recieves more sunlight in different areas, and the earth's solar revolution isn't a perfect circle, AND the earth wobbles\n8.  The sun's reflection causes the moon to light up, and so the sun's position determin's the shape.\n9.  the earth and the sun and the moon have to line up in a linear fashion, perfectly, not just good enough for a full moon
301180
Also, we only see it when it is above the horizon.\n\nDuring the day, the sun is obviously above the horizon.  But the moon sets an hour or so later each day, so sometimes it is below the horizon in the day, and sometimes not.
700627
The rotation of the moon just happens to be in the same sync as its orbit around the earth, so we only see one side. From the looks of the moon, though, it's speculated that the moon may have orbited faster or rotated faster, etc because there are crater marks on the earth side also, just not as many.\n\nActually, the moon is locked in its orbit so it always faces the Earth. The Moon is NOT perfectly round...technically its shaped like an egg due to the effects of gravity from the earth and possibly too when the moon was formed bilions of years agao after a huge meteor crashed into the earth and some of the Earth's molten core spewed out into space. Because the Earth is more massive than the Moon, it pulls on the Moon, "stretching" it closer to the Earth, throwing the shape and axis off, causing the moon unable to rotate on its own axis. This same effect is seen by the moons of other massive planets like Jupiter and Saturn. The same is effect is also seen with Mercury due to its close proximity the Sun and its massive gravitational effects.