Moonset from Space.

By Alex in Pictures on Sep 16, 2006 at 2:05 pm

The Earth’s atmospheric lens distort the image of the moon setting, as seen from the International Space Station orbiting earth. It seems like the moon becomes an impossibly flattened oval!

At first the lower limb is distorted most as the atmospheric lens pushes the lower limb upwards to create an egg shape (close-up). Finally the whole moon becomes an impossibly flattened oval. In the final frame the moon’s lower edge is slightly clipped by the earth’s surface.

The lower part of the disk and then the entire moon is appreciably reddened by preferential atmospheric scattering of blue light out of the ray path.

Link – via Johnsadowski


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