how come the moon looks orange and huge? sometimes?

Because it's close to the horizon. There are two principles at work here:

The first is "Rayleigh Scattering." This is the scattering of light in by dust and gas in the atmosphere. Light of shorter wavelength (blues) generally tend to get blocked and reflected by dust and gas, while light of longer wavelengths (reds and oranges) manage to pass through. When the moon or the sun is near the horizon the light from it has to pass through a longer distance of atmosphere, hence making it red or orange. The light that doesn't make it through is what someone else in the world sees as a blue sky.

The second is what's called the "Apparent Distance Illusion." Our brains compensate for distance by making far away objects seem larger. Normally when the moon is high this makes no difference, but when the moon is close to the horizon, our sense of perspective makes our brains think that the moon is farther away.

Not really. The large size of the Moon is an optical illusion; it will appear large any time it's just above the horizon. The colour is a local atmospheric effect due to air pollution in your immediate neighbourhood. The Moon frequently appears large and strongly coloured around Full Moon...next Full Moon is October 4.

Refraction and scattering, and the ability to compare the visual size of known objects in the foreground with the moon when it is close to the horizon. When the moon is higher in the sky it is not close to anything on the ground to compare its size to, so it seems to be smaller, but this is an optical illusion. Incidentally, a dust storm and Rayleigh scattering is why the moon is/was literally blue in Iran today:

http://www.spaceweather.com/

Scattering by air molecules is why the daytime sky is blue.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/atmos/b...

first of all the moon does not produce its light..it reflects the sun's rays.

secondly the moon is constantly moving.

light ray is composed of 7 colors, of which one end is blue and other is red. [ spectrum ]. blue deviates easily due to refraction in the atmosphere. so it is less visible.. whereas red does not.. [ thats why they use red even for traffic signals] .

thus the moon appears red.

i don know exactly why it appears large. so not discussing that.

Hope this helped you... :)

orange is smog... the reflects light from the sun ... down toward the earth and in los angelas its just smog... size is optical illusion

i asked my teacher this question in my astro class. she said it's an illusion, if you block out objects like trees that are in your view, the moon will fall back into place...i haven't tried it yet, but it's worth a shot