I don't think it works like that.
because of scattering and absorption of light in the atmosphere no lensing effect is observed except for mirages
Well, that article is talking about something slightly different. In truth, there is in fact an enlarging of the sun/moon near the horizon, but only over the ocean or other flattish surface. I'll use the sun as an example, though the moon does the same thing. As sunlight enters the atmosphere, it refracts slightly, and thus the sun is not actually where is appears to be. When the sun appears to be nearing the horizon, it is actually behind it. As time goes on, the sun appears to enlarge, dim, and redden before finally setting. This is because the image of the sun is composed only of the light that is still reaching us. Almost all the blue has been scattered out by the atmosphere's nitrogen, so we get far more red due to the increased amount of atmosphere between us and the sun. The sun image enlarged because of the rapid temperature change associated with the setting of the sun - all the light starts to refract slightly outward from the main photon stream. Because the photons spread out, the intensity at each point is less.
That's what I learned in Physics 111 last week, anyhow.
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Topic: Holy shit Moon (Read 2275 times)