Originally Posted by barry carrick-white

I am a complete novice at this and ask your forbearance, please.
I noticed this phenomenon at Bexley (South East London) at about 9a.m.; the approx. half moon was in the south and high, the sun was low on the eastern horizon.
The Sun's gravity bends a star's light passing nearby so that it seems displaced in relation to other stars (famous experiment during eclipse of sun, that proved Einstein's contnetnion). Because of difficulty related to the sun's
aurora the light measured would have been quite far out from sun's rim.
So we know how far out from the sun light has to be not to bent. And we know how light quite close is bent.
Assuming that the Earth's gravity could bend light (just a bit, I know that the Sun has vastly greater gravity) and it applied to the phenomenon in question then this is different from the sun bending light as the observer is right on the surface of the Earth, i.e. the sunlight hitting his eye is passing very close and at a low angle to the Earth. Could it be that in this situation after reaching the Earth somewhere beyond the Eastern horizon it is curving around the earth at thus hitting the observer's eye at a more acute angle than we would expect causing us to see the Sun as lower in the sky than it actually is?
Barry