I checked this stuff out since you brought it up and found that I had to use a
camera located 20 million miles away having an 'angle 0.05'. The Earth and Moon
were proportionally correct at about 8000 miles and 2100 miles diameters (Moon
placed almost directly behind the Earth, really no difference if in front at
this field of view) and of course the Moon being 240,000 miles from the Earth.
Problem was that the image mapping becomes distorted at angle 1 or less, perhaps
other small angles distort things too depending upong the objects and/or
textures.  Like Mike W. has pointed out, in photography the same sort of thing
becomes apparent.  The usual viewpoint of a person never matches too well.  In
fact I've come to think of this as a somewhat macro-view to tele-view aspect of
human vision (to sound scientific).  If you look at the Moon (or anything)
directly as opposed to indirectly there's a sense of zooming in closer.  The
typical gaze upon a landscape however for example is wide field and were the
Moon looked at while also taking in the entire surrounding sky or horizon then
it shrinks from sight more.  If you pick anything out of your vision area, such
as a unavoidably noticeable Moon in this case, then it immediately seems larger.
Take notice next time you stare at one object and see how everything else blends
away into the background (or foreground).  Look at the same thing while also
taking in the surroundings and it can seem smaller than when looked at directly.
Anyhow, that's my theorizing about it.

Bob

"Andrea Ryan" <ary### [at] global2000net> wrote in message
news:38794C56.4F454654@global2000.net...
> Hello,
> I am trying to make a picture of the Earth and the Moon.  One POV unit
> equals one mile.  The Moon is something like 250000 miles from the
> origin and it is nothing but a tiny, gray speck.  When the camera is
> near the Moon, the Earth looks small too.  Is there a limit on how far
> apart objects can be?  I might have one POV unit equal to 100 or 1000
> miles.
> Brendan Ryan
>

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