Glaucoma I know you know a bit of physics, so you are suggesting that it's the earth's atmosphere that causes this effect and not the bending of space time?
To me it doesn't make sense that it could refract over 3 quarters of the earth.
same reason the sun appears to be different "colors" as the day goes on, the atmosphere, solid particulates in the air, the magnetosphere, stratosphere, ozone layer (to a degree)etc, etc, all that changes the way we "perceive" the light.
the way you describe it is impossible.
the only thing that has enough mass to bend light is a black hole, neutron stars are the densest/heaviest thing in the universe, minus a black hole, and even those can't bend light the way you are describing it.
Go check out some physics books.
Chandresakar limit, neutron stars, dark matter, supernova, black holes.. those will clear up your theory a bit.