Originally posted by Pentaxor nice shot fellas. I was a bit disappointed since I forgot about the time and came out a lil bit late. I went out around past 8 pm last night and saw the moon when it was positioned around the same time just above the horizon. I should had gone at around 7 pm when the moon was at it's peak size sitting along the horizon. it was huge alright but I can only imagine how much bigger it was before I saw it. I guess I have to wait another 18 more years to see one or atleast go somewhere/someplace else where it can be seen bigger.
The moon doesn't change size from any sort of magnification from the air actually. Only or perception of its size changes when it is near the horizon. You can prove this out by just overlaying the moom from your view with a pencile erasure or your out stretched pinky nail; note how both @ the horizon & up in the sky are both the same. Or you can take a photo of it just above the horizon, and in the middle of the sky, and crop both photos to the exact size of the moon. They'll be the just about the same size give or take a little margin of cropping error. You'll find thousands of articles in the google machine like
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/831/why-does-the-moon-appear-bigger-near-the-horizon
All this is only to say if you missed the moon rise, you didn't miss a 'larger' moon, as it's the same size everywhere in the sky. And it certainly wasn't at max brightness near the horizon. That
is affected by the extra air, and is many EV levels dimmer than it was when fully up in the sky. As a matter of fact, all my photos near the horizon also suffered sever & thick lateral CA in a form normal CA removal in Lightroom couldn't get rid of in the manner it removes it, so those photos were full losses for me.