Walk me through it!
Ok Kairos. Here's an easy way to explain it. A tennis ball is smaller than a soccer ball. If you hold a tennis ball close up to a camera mimic the effect of being on the tennis ball or very close to it, and you then proceed to view a soccer ball 20 feet away, the tennis ball will appear larger because of its closeness to the camera. Take a picture. Then go outside and place the tennis ball on the ground. Then place the soccer ball 20 feet away also on the ground. Then go a distance of about 50 feet away and, using a camera, position yourself such that the tennis ball and soccer ball are directly in line of sight like an alignment and zoom in and take a picture and you will see that the soccer ball now appears larger than the tennis ball even though you're now further away. Because you magnified the image with the zoom feature. It's that simple!
Why are there no stars? The exposure is reduced when taking the images because the brightness of the earth's and moon's albedo effect would distort the clarity of the details. Reducing the exposure also has the effect of making the stars invisible. The ambient light from the earth is strong enough to overpower starlight of stars in close visual field proximity so you wouldn't see them even if the exposure was not reduced. As proof of the fact that the exposure was reduced, note how the moon looks dull rather than the bright color we see in the night sky with the naked eye.