There's another ongoing thread for
Full Moon Impossible on Flat Earth?.
I think I better do my explanation in a separate thread, avoiding to disturb the discussion about the "Math.".
A question came up or more, it was refuted, that this is possible on RE, with the sun already beyond the horizon.
s.a.
Moon Tilt IllisionFirst try to explain it:
- Observers view of the world is geocentric ("observer centric"). So assume a moon orbiting the earth, with the earth and thus the observer in the center of the orbit, the moon lit from a far away sun, also orbiting the earth some way far out. All, observer, moon's orbit and sun are in the same plane (approximately). Sun rays will reach all points of moon's orbit parallel (nearly).
And: we put a small pointer on the lit side of the moon pointing to the sun - Now lets start with a half moon: The rays from the sun will reach this half moon so, that they are tangential to moon's orbit at that point and perpendicular to observers viewing line to the moon. So that pointer mentioned before, will not only point to the sun, but tangential to moon's orbit, indicating the path where the moon will go next (trajectory?). And it will do so during the whole orbit.
- Now a waxing gibbous moon: Sun rays will now reach the moon only after crossing moon's orbit and come from "inside" the orbit ("last miles"). Compared to the half moon the "pointer" will be 'tilted' somewhat to the center of the orbit, but it will still be in the same plane as sun, moon's orbit and observer.
- Now as observer, moon's orbit and the pointer are in the same plane, the observer cannot detect that tilt of the pointer. He will only see the projection of the pointer onto moon's orbit. So again same as with the half moon, for the observer this pointer indicates the movement (trajectory) of the moon.
As after moon rise the moon is going up for his course across the night sky, also this pointer appears to point up, away from the horizon.
Second Try:
- Lets assume - could be, I see nothing that could exclude this generally, in any case - sun and moon are in such positions, that a light ray from the sun goes nearly straight above observers head to the moon. And I claim this is also working when the light ray does not go directly over the head of the observer, but in some distance.
- This reminds me of something analog ... "going in a straight line across the sky high above the observer". This was discussed in EnaG and many threads in this forum: Sun's apparent path from rise to set. You could also use a big aircraft, there are also numerous examples on this forum
- Let's follow the path of the ray in reverse direction, from the moon to the sun: This ray appears - as the path of the sun/airplane - to go up from the horizon or the moon (still rather close to the horizon) in an steep angle until it reaches the point above the observer, than it will appear to go down with a similar steep angle to the opposite horizon.
This all is caused by the observer, who changes his orientation, when he follows the "course" of this ray. He is turning around facing both, opposite horizons. A direct straight line can only be viewed if you do it in a "one shot", with both moon and sun within the field of vision, if orientation of observer does not change.
You could try with a fish eye lens, but end up with the horizon appearing to be bended dramatically.