Size of sun and moon (sunset -zenith - sunrise) I took a picture of the sun during sunrise and when it stood in the zenith (by duple-exposing). You find this photo on http://www.hs-bremen.de/planetarium/plasonne.htm The explanations are in German - sorry. You see that the horizontal diameter is the same, the vertical diameter during sunset is smaller because of the effect of the differential refraction. But the size of the moon differs - just the opposite way! During moonrise the distance to the moon measures round about 60 times the radius of the earth, when the moon is in the zenith, the distance measures only 59 times the radius of the earth. ThatÂ’s why in reality (you can take a photo) the size of the moon in the zenith is larger than during moonrise. But the effect is small - up to now I got no good photo. The same occurs to the sun. But the effect is so vanishing (150 million km compared with 6370 km) that the size of the sun is always the same. The problem exists only in our head. It is not necessary to have something to compare near the horizon. Take a mirror and watch the sun - there will be no difference in the size during sunrise and when it stand in the zenith.
Dieter Vornholz
