I was looking again at some photos I took when I arrived in Beijing and one in particular caught my attention. It shows the skyline at dawn and the moon still glowing in the early light. What struck me was that the shape of the moon in Beijing was not as it is here in Xiamen. I had begun to think that what I was seeing here in Xiamen was a specifically Chinese or Eastern moon shape but no, it has more to do with the the Southern position of Xiamen as opposed to Beijing being in the North. I don’t know why I didn’t make this connection earlier. Maybe because I have not spent so much time in other Southern latitudes. Anyway I looked online and found my answers here: http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/applets/eclipt…
where there is a computer model of the shape of the moon as viewed from any point on the earth’s surface and also here:
http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/teaching/moon….
where there is an interesting observation on the design of Singapore flag and how it does not accurately reflect how the moon appears in the sky from Singapore but rather was adopted in 1959 for more political reasons.
