appear

I observe the moon wherever I go. What phase is it in, I
wonder? When will it reach the full moon phase? Now
imagine what happened to me recently when I was teaching
in Australia, 12,000 miles from my hometown in North
America. Shortly after my arrival, seeing that the skies were
cloudy, I checked the newspaper for a weather report.
Typically, the weather page also gives times for sunrise and
sunset as well as moonrise and moonset.

Picture my surprise when I discovered that the illustrations
in the newspaper were, by my experience, wrong. The
waxing moon appeared to be illuminated on the left side
rather than the right side as I had always known it to be. “I
must call the newspaper,” I thought. But I continued to study
the images in the newspaper and then consulted a globe.

When I imagined myself standing on a spot in the southern
hemisphere, the answer came to me. Here, indeed, south of
the equator, the waxing moon appears to be on the left. Try
this in your imagination, and you will see it, too.

The point is that often we do not see things as they are.
Instead, we see things as we are. That is why it is necessary
in science to have many people making many observations
of the same phenomenon. I am sure that to people in
Australia, the moon in North America seem strange as well.

1. What does 'appear' mean?
2. What does 'it' refer to?
3. What is the omission after 'to be'?