Also this is all assuming we know roughly the size of the moons and the distance of both from Nirn...which we do not in fact actually know, so most of this is conjecture anyway. If they are actually humongous moons that are far enough away to not be shadowed by Nirn then the difference crescents do look odd.

So it all depends on how you interpret the whole situation....who wants to form a Skyrim Astronomy clan, to delve into the depths of Skyrim's universe and unlocks its secrets and display the truths for all to see?

Cheers,

Craig

We can't ever see it from Earth. "Dark side of the moon" generally refers to the side of the Moon that doesn't face Earth, not the unlit side of the moon, which changes.

Let me simplify this debate, because lots of nonsense is getting thrown around:

1. The lighting situation is TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE if Nirn does NOT ECLIPSE its moons. It seems unlikely that Nirn constantly eclipses its moons, but if it does, then this works.

2. [EDIT: this option rescinded] The lighting situation is TOTALLY LEGITIMATE if we assume that there are constant lunar eclipses on Nirn. To those defending this position, understand that this is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from how our moon's appearance is determined, which has nothing to do with Earth's shadow.

EDIT: After looking further, option 2 is impossible. If Nirn were eclipsing its moons to create this situation, the shadows would fit some sort of cone extending from Nirn, which is definitely not happening.

Verdict: Lighting is impossible. If you're still confused, understand that the moon's phases are NOT caused by Earth's shadow.

You say that According to Physics, Light Travels in a straight line, yet, you somehow believe, if the object that it's shining on is a different size and in a different place, it will have a different shadow,
even if the light is coming from only ONE point....

I am at a loss for words.
A complete loss.

The interesting thing though, is that pretty much all lore is 'written' by 'in game' people meaning that there is a good chance they could be biased, misguided, incomplete or just outright wrong.

Look at the whole Akatosh/Alduin thing =P

Don't make me ask the Astrophysicist I know about this.

Yes, common sense says that this is impossible, but position, depth, angle, and a whole array of other factors can cause light to do so strange things. It is the reason optical illusions exist.

This is all facinating stuff guys but do we have a final agreed explanation here? Light can certainly do some weird stuff, it can be seen to magnify distant galaxys by the positioning and planets and cause all term of opticle illusions including the perception of it bending, warping, being cut up completely and having entire spectrum changes for no apparent obvious reason. SO yeah...do we agree on something yet?! lol.

Those decaying gods must be some very large Gravelers.

so one mood is the the side of nirn in ralation to the sun and one is above nirn in relation to the sun = different "shadows" that nirn casts on the moon. it's the same light but the thing eclipsing them (us) is in a different position n relation to both.

Is this even a relavant discussion? If someone dislikes the way it is just make a mod that changes it.
This is Nirn, for all we know the moons are inhabbited by aliens with huge flashlights who just decided to live on different sides of their respective moons. (I read the thing about a dead god, just making a bad example).
This is such a weird and hostile thread for such a minor issue. And so far it seems no one can come up with a good reason as to why it should be changed or not changed.

So, how about them Skyrim mods eh?

Light from one moon reflecting off the other. Different angle of impact.

The concept that kept bugging me, while reading this thread, is that if the moons look that way because of Nirn's shadow the sun must be very close to Nirn.

And: this would be in keeping with the scale of skyrim itself.

Nirn is probably a dozen or two miles in diameter, and the sun is a few dozen miles away... (and about the same size as Nirn).

*cough*

Wow.

The problem is not that the shadows appear different, it's that they're on the "top" side of the moon at night. This can never happen (and look for photos of a crescent moon at night to verify this) because the sun would be high in the sky.

But if you imagine that the shadows on the moons were rotated 180 degrees it would still be possible for the shadows to look different. Imagine that you stand on the earth at midnight, with a single moon directly overhead. This is a lunar eclipse. Now if the moon deviates but slightly, we have a full moon. Imagine the moon moving through the night sky (the sun and earth remaining fixed) towards the horizon. The shadow remains on the same side of the moon, but we see more of it because the moon's position has changed relative to us. As it nears the horizon it becomes a half moon. Now, suppose that we have two moons and place one in each of the positions we just considered - one moon is full, the other is half.
This shows that the idea that both shadows must be exactly the same is incorrect. How to account for different angles? Well, now instead of the sun being directly on the opposite side of the earth to where you are, imagine it has set an hour or two ago. Now, a moon just above the horizon where the sun just set would be crescent (the sun is more or less behind it) with the crescent pointing straight down. Now imagine the moon rotating around the horizon. When it gets 90 degrees around from where it started it will be half full, with the filled half pointing slightly down. This is the change of angle we're all yammering about. if instead of moving by 90 degrees it moved by, say, 20 degrees, it would be a slightly more full crescent pointing not quite straight down. Bring back the original crescent moon and bam, you have to moons, one sun, two differently angled shadows.

TL;DR the apparent angle of the shadow depends on the angle between the sun, planet and moon, so two moons in different positions can appear to have differently angled shadows. The picture's still wrong, but not for this reason.

1. It's not possible.
2. Deal with it one way or the other: by ignoring it or fixing it.

I gotta say I never noticed this, but now its driving me crazy every time I look up into the night sky. I hope someone decided or figures out how to fix it, I know its not a big problem bit its the little things that make a game amazing!

To all those saying the light source is shining at different angles, no. The light would radiate outwards, if the light sides of the moons were tilted somewhat towards each other this makes sense, but to be tilted away is nonsensical. Try drawing a line of the light side of the moons out to find a point of origin. There are 2. Just like how you can't have a triangle with 2 obtuse angles, the edges coming from the obtuse angles have no point to meet up.

I like the way you think and the way you put it

Wow...

The light in the game is absolutely poor work. The mmons are not giving any light its just a generic light source working the same as daylight, which by the doesn t act as sunlight at all.
Most of all light source must be reworked.

You could almost make it work if was daytime. Those lines would come near to intersecting paths in 3d space somewhere near the middle of the screen, before crossing and heading out into space without ever touching.

But they, after putting way to much though into this and running some pretty crazy models to only way this is possible is with a new moon and magic light sources on the moon. The shadows don't even line up well enough for the partial Lunar eclipse theory.

Makes sense to me, I mean Nirn's moons are huge and have to be ALOT closer to Nirn than our moon is to Earth.

It's funny that how the sunlight is reflected by the moon bothers us, but shooting fire from our fingetips, pausing time in a battle to change gear, fast traveling, and fire-breathing dragons doesn't.

All this standing around is Rubbish! We should be taking the fight to the Stormcloaks- We ought to recognize the bigger affront to the astrology of Nirn is the fact that it's called "Earth" so many times.

Now wait a minute. The fire from your fingertips things -does- bother me, it's basically just an obvious indicator for which spell you have equipped (which is silly) and I don't like pausing in combat to change things, either. However, fast travelling makes sense, as it's just skipping things that actually happen, (time passes) and the dragons are technically shouting fire, etc.

Just saying.