Why is it you can see the Little Dipper better if you look slightly away from it?
477344
Jayboo what the heck are you talking about?\nI think you must have totally skipped the day that your junior high biology class was studying the eye.\nDo a search for cones and rods.\n\namateur astronomers call looking a bit to the side of a dim object "using averted vision" but there is more to it than just rods -vs- cones. http://vegas.astronomynv.org/Tutorials/avertedvision.htm\nThis website has a nice article detailing  averted vision.\nhope that helps.
264522
The healthy human eye is only restricted by external factors (ie.: poor visibility due to haze, dust or fog), just think how far the stars are!
663754
Close your eyes and you'll see it.
127080
lower atmoshpere is denser, and partially diffuses the light, so I guess you can say that it travels slower there, but only by a tiny bit, given light's huge speed.
840902
there's this nifty little thing called gravity? look it up
110001
You couldnt see yourself.\nYou, the Earth, the Sun, and the Milky Way galaxy would all blend together be a faint blurr, even through a telescope.
368951
Same phenomenon happens when you look through a convex lens or at your reflection in a spoon. Something to do with the movement of light. It bends and shows stuff the other way around. Sorry, it's not my expertise. But that's basically how it happens.
21430
The theories presented so far have been pretty much debunked. The following link gives an elaborate explanation of this illusion. But even it fails to explain why we don't see this illusion every time the moon rises. It does not always appear larger at moonrise than when it is higher in the sky. Also, the moon may appear to be different sizes on different nights even in the same location. I'm still looking for a plausable explanation. \n\nhttp://facstaff.uww.edu/mccreadd/
185273
The primary reason you can't see very far along the ground is because of air pressure. The lower your elevation, the more dust/air particles are condensed. When you look up, you're perceiving light that only has to travel through the air above you, while when you are looking at something else on the ground, the light has to travel through a lot more particles. Pollution obviously makes this a lot worse.\n\nAssuming you had a perfectly clear view, you still wouldn't be able to see that far because of the earth's curvature. It's easiest to do this by looking at over a large body of water. On a perfectly clear day, you will notice that you can actually perceive a slight curve near the horizon. The ancient Greeks calculated a rough approximation of the earth's size by measuring the size of a building or other object, and then going out on a ship until they could just barely see it. Then they measured its perceived height at that point, and how far they traveled out to sea. Using some simple geometry, they calculated the curvature of the earth and its size. It was relatively accurate.
367345
Depends where ur looking.  If you look at the right spot you will see nothing, because there wouldn't be anything obstructing your view.  Or you might see that bird that just crossed your view.
766822
The North Star (Polaris) is at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper. The two stars at the end of the Big Dipper's bowl point to it.\n\nMost of the other stars of the Little Dipper are fairly dim, so you could have trouble making it out unless you're well away from urban light pollution. Polaris itself is almost as bright as the brightest stars in the Big Dipper, and should be easy to see. So you're probably just not looking in the right place.
259241
Because there are no atmospheric particles for the light beams to bounce off of. You know how light bends(i.e. slows down) when traveling through water? Some light particles bounce off the water and others go through it. Its the same with the air. So that is why when you look at pictures of space you can actually see some things, because the light is bouncing off of them. The rest is void. Or mostly anyhow.
510165
It's circular, but the bottom is usually hidden below the horizon.
208035
Relative position in the sky. The earth's atmosphere helps distort the size as the moon is "lower" in the sky, so then it appears larger.
752656
The size of an object you can resolve with an optical system has a theoretical limit given by the wavelenght of the light you're using divided by the diameter of the optics multiplied by 1.22. If you plug the numbers in you find for a 1 foot diameter optical system at visible light (~400 nm) at an altitude of 100km, the smallest thing you could see is on the order of a foot, give or take (rough calculation). You could definitely not read a postage stamp or a wrist watch. Maybe a license plate with some bigger optics, but this is ignoring all sorts of atmospheric scintillation which screws things up.
388414
refraction from the atmosphere magnifies.  When the moon, or sun, is low on the horizon, you're looking through more of the atmosphere to see it.
396433
While the Earth is not perfectly round, the difference is so small, much less than 1%, that you cannot notice it at all just by looking.