I live in Australia and when the moon isn’t full it always appears to fill up from the bottom up. So a new moon looks like a croissant with the curved side facing down. But on northern hemisphere flags like Turkey for example it appears as a croissant standing up with the curve facing left. Does the moon appear to wax and wane from top to bottom or left to right in different parts of the world?
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Yes, it appears upside in each hemisphere relative to the other.
Imagine drawing a circle on the center of the ceiling of your room (easy if you have a skylight or similar!). Now stand against one wall and look up at it. You’re looking up at an angle, so visually one side will appear “higher” – ie, the side closer to directly above you. Now move to the opposite wall – the side of the circle that is “higher” is opposite to before. But it’s the same logic – it’s the side closest to directly above you.
The moon is the same – just very very far above everyone on the surface. The equator is (very approximately) like standing under it, and the further north or south you travel, the more you see the moon from an angle.
In the northern hemisphere it’s officially right to left and in the southern hemisphere officially left to right. The moon can tilt which will affect the exactness of this. But in general, that’s it.
Now, imagine you and your friend are on opposite sides of a field, looking at a ball. You’re at the south end, and your friend is at the north end. It’s morning so the sun is in the east. You are looking north, so from your perspective the light on the ball is coming from your right, the east. Your friend is looking south, so the light is coming from their left, also the east.
Now, the ball is the moon and the equator is the dividing line. The sun is the sun.
Yes, we’re standing on a sphere, and Moon is floating somewhere out there off the side of the sphere.
Depending on where you are on Earth, you’re looking at Moon from a different angle.
Illustration:
https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/4/2019/11/moon-cover-2fa5902.jpg
The smile appearance is to do with latitude on the earth. The earth is tilted in its orbit but the moon orbits the earth in the plane that the earth moves (it does not orbit the equator, it orbits the earth in the plane the earth moves around the sun).
When the moon travels more directly over head, as it hits the horizon it looks more like a smile than a side on crescent. When the moon is further south of you (or north if you’re in the southern hemisphere) then it has a side on appearance.
The nearer the equator and the tropics you are the more often the moon appears to move over head. The further north or south you are from the equator the less frequently you will see this and it’ll appear more side on. The angle of the moon changes the further away from the equator you get – from 6 o’clock (bottom smile) to 3 oclock perfect side on nearer the poles
Australia is a big continent but generally the continent is closer to the equator than Europe and the US and particularly the further north you go in Australia including into the tropics proper on the north coast
So the closer to the tropics and equator you are the more the moon will seem to move overhead and the more you will see that phenomenon (especially when it’s near the horizon). The further away you are the less you will see that.
Edit: also remember in the English speaking world we generally will have a bias in what we see in terms of TV, movies and games. They’re largely produced in places where it’s normal to see the moon side on, and thats the normal viewpoint of the moon from Europe and USA. Its become “normal” to us. But people living in the tropics will not find it so unusual. Even in Aus most people live in the south where this difference is less obvious.
Edit 2: just to be clear I’m answering the question in the text of the post about the smile appearance. The title is a different question which others have answered about the direction the moon seems to fill (left/right)
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Take a look at [this diagram](https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2018-11/TheMoonsOrientation.jpg).
Since the moon’s orientation stays the same but people’s orientation essentially flips depending on which hemisphere you’re standing on means the moon looks like it’s flipping as well.
Edit: whoever made the diagram didn’t quite get it correct though, the small moon images are rotated 180degrees rather than being flipped / mirrored as they should be.
In addition to what others have said, if you search for images of the full moon from different latitudes (like by naming a city a photo was taken in) you will notice the moon doesn’t suddenly flip after the equator but has a different angle from each latitude making it appear to have rotated
There are a lot of great answers in the thread so I’ll just impart a bit of extra wisdom: a *croissant* is a french pastry in the shape of a **crescent**.
I’m also confused on how I can see a half moon with the sun up at the same time?
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