Ptolemaic Reflections

I have been watching the lunar eclipse. And with the moon now barely lit in the shadow of our planet, I was struck by how close it seems to be, as well as how large and how small. Obviously, it's the biggest thing in lights in some respects but the perspective is obviously skewed.

At the risk of insulting people who understand astronomy a whole lot better than I do, I cannot help but gush at the moment, little tid-bits of information I still recall from Astronomy class: The moon, seems about the same size as a chad of paper tumbling to the rug after the jaws of a hole-punch have relented, emitting a small round nuisance for your vacuum cleaner to suck up. Pinch it between your fingers. Basically, the moon appears smaller than a dime left on a coffee table. At the same time though, it's still enough - in relative size - to perfectly obstruct the sun in corridors experiencing a solar eclipse. Blighted by the rust color of shadow for the while that I have observed... Is it the proximity that keeps it distinct with the muted light? In any regard, that the moon can appear to reduce the sun to a halo surrounding the deepest darkness testifies to the distance between the earth and sun and the enormous power and energy of the sun to sustain all life on our tiny planet while seeming to correspond to little more in size than that tiny dime on the coffee table.

Happy Solstice.