We see the same idea also in the rising and setting sun and moon. On
a clear, cloudless night, when nothing seems to interfere with the
brightness of the stars, we cannot, by looking upward, perceive any
moisture present in the atmosphere; but if we cast our eyes to the
horizon, whereby we see through the mass of atmosphere endwise, as it
were, and note the appearance of the stars there, or the rising or
setting moon, we will see that the atmosphere there gives a redness
to the rising body, which it does not have when it has ascended to
mid-heaven. On a clear night, which is caused by the presence of the
area of high barometer, the moon when in mid-heaven is of a clear,
silver-white, and it is the same moon that at the horizon was a deep
red. The color of the moon has not changed; it is simply the medium
through which it is seen that produces the difference in color.
Occasionally, on a clear, bright ("high") night, when the moon is full,
prior to rising, when just below the horizon, it will so illuminate this
lower strata of atmosphere as to appear like a great fire; the moon
rises red, but its deep color gradually fades as it rises, and when well
up in the heavens we perceive that this deep coloring was an illusion
and merely the influence of its surroundings.
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