With regards to the Moon, the current one is simply a placeholder at the moment. If you open the objects menu, you'll actually find the model under outerra/test_moon, and I don't think there is a need to waste time improving it any more than necessary, as we're still waiting for the procedural moon, which once it arrives may make it necessary to re-evaluate the way it is rendered. However, OT has already done some things to make it look like the real thing looks to the human eye. For instance, the absolute angular distance of the Moon as seen from Earth is about 0.5 degrees. Now, if that were so in OT it would be exactly 12 pixels wide at an HFOV of 80 degrees on a screen of 1920x1080. Do the math: 0.5/80*1920. Now it sounds logical that would be true, but for a reason I don't completely understand that is actually not correct at all because of how it is rendered. For this reason the Moon is set to a scale of 4x, which scales it to the correct angular diameter as seen by the human eye, which is now 48 pixels wide at an FOV of 80 degrees on a screen of 1920x1080. This is defined in the file
world.cfg by the following parameter:
moon-scale = 4.0,
Also, the Moon is in the correct orbit, using data from NASA, and therefore should have the correct Apogee and Perigee, making it bigger and small depending on the distance and time of year.
You can verify the distance to the moon by opening the HUD and pointing it at the Moon, you'll see the distance which you can compare with its apogee/perigee. However, it won't be accurate according to the year, because there is no current definition of time since
epoch in Outerra, that I know of, which would determine the Moon's exact position in its orbit.
Regards,
Uriah