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Science Llama

@the-science-llama / the-science-llama.tumblr.com

Science, Astronomy, Technology, Art and general Awesomeness
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Why did the SUPER MOON just look normal?

Well those photos you see that get everyone hyped up are basically just an effect created by the camera lens. The photographer essentially had a huge zoom lens or mounted the camera to a telescope and shot the Moon with something in the foreground. Unless you have telescopic eyeballs to do this, the Moon will only look slightly larger than normal at Perigee (closest approach to Earth - because it's orbit is elliptical).

As you can see in the gif above, when you zoom in, objects in the background become larger. That object you see in the middle stays the same size in the frame because when the camera was zooming in it was also moving away and vice-versa. This effect is called the Hitchcock or Dolly Zoom and is also why the Moon looks SUPER in many of those photos you see. In all actuality, the Moon at Perigee is only slightly larger and is hardly noticeable to human eyes. However, the fact that it was at Perigee AND at Full Moon at the same time helped out the Moon Illusion.

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