> **Possible Duplicate:**  
> [Why does the moon sometimes appear giant and a orange red color near the horizon?](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/25254/why-does-the-moon-sometimes-appear-giant-and-a-orange-red-color-near-the-horizon)  

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I made a little research about this and found this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion that states the explanation of the moon being bigger at the horizon  is still debated. 

I found this which looks pretty 'big' http://www.psychohistorian.org/img/astronomy/deep-sky/photos/ayiomamitis/20090804-moonrise.jpg but however this kind of repetitive shots http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0706/UludagMoonrise_tezel.jpg show no decrease in the aparent moon radius.

What I am trying to understand is if it is a real illusion, if the atmosphere makes the image bigger or what other explanation could be possible and of course plausible.