Big Moon

[mindpencil]

I noticed that on some films, e.g. E.T. they show a night sky with an absolutely enormous moon- is this camera trickery, or doess the moon ever appear like that. Does this phenomena exist, and where can it be seen? Thanks.

[B00]

Yep, it's real!

Called The Harvest Moon and it actually looked like that last week- awesome sight!

[hugnie21]

It was like it last night too, I saw it just above the horizon over the sea to the east. It just looked like a sunset. I knew it often happens this time of year, but didn't know what it was called. Thanks Boo.

[spudqueen]

I believe it is called the Harvest Moon as it is so bright you could actually carry on working to bring the harvest in.

[heathfield]

If you look at the moon through a pair of binoculars as it rises behind a far distant horizon of trees, houses, etc, those features will look absolutely tiny against what seems to be a truly enormous moon. In filming, they use telephoto lenses to produce the same effect. One of the best examples I ever saw was on TV, where a mountaineer was doing a night climb of a vertical cliff face in the US. He was silhouetted against a full moon, and his body height was about a sixth of the diameter of the moon. A distant shot through a powerful telephoto lens. Wow!