you have provided excellent evidence that a directional light source appears brighter when viewed head-on rather than at an angle.
good work. however, this does nothing to support your absurd claim that light sources appear brighter and larger as they recede from an observer.
The entire highway is at an angle to the observer, they are not approaching head on.
If headlights really shrink appropriately into the distance, where are all of the pictures which show headlights as pinpricks in the distance?
The closest headlights do not show much glare as they are dipped and are considerably below the camera.
At first the lights appear not to change in size much as the glare gets worse,
but from middle distance to the farthest the
apparent size of the lights does definitely get much smaller, without some calculation it is impossible to guess if is appropriate.
But, the moon behaves in exactly the same way! I have taken a series of photos of the moon with quite a "long lens" (1,600 mm) of the moon at various elevations from quite near the horizon to around 70° and the apparent size stays nearly the same apparent size (at a bit over 0.5°) over the whole range.
I can't post them yet, as I am in hospital at present (nothing to worry about), just that I don't have access to the photos or data.
But definitely, the moon stays the same size excluding the tiny increase expected from being slightly closer when overhead.
Not only that, the detail of craters is just as obvious near the horizon as overhead. There is no glare to obscure things as with the sun.
I did not take the following so I have no scales.
On Thursday, December 15, 2005, the full Moon will be just about at the most northerly declination it can ever attain. S&T: Rick Fienberg.From: The Highest Full-frontal Overhead | | |
I can't vouch for these photos, but I am sure you have seen enough like this in real lifelife.