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That is NOT how crescent moons work. To cast THAT shadow, Earth would have to be SMALLER than the moon

Earth’s shadow is only projected when there is a lunar eclipse (and reversely Moon’s shadow is only projected when it is a solar eclipse), and since the Moon’s Earth orbit inclination is about 5 degrees those happens relatively rarely.

So that is not how crescent Moon works. Our perspective of one lasts for half a lunar month, two weeks with waxing and waning, because we see the lunar shadow as it passes closer to the Sun. Some of the rays will bend close to the surface from a (very!) weak atmosphere, so it shouldn’t be a perfect radius match. Sage’s portrayal works relatively well for me.

Wikipedia: “A lunar day is equal to one lunar month (one synodic orbit around Earth) due to it being tidally locked to Earth. Since the Moon is not tidally locked to the Sun, lunar daylight and night times both occur around the Moon. The changing position of the illumination of the Moon by the Sun during a lunar day is observable from Earth as the changing lunar phases, waxing crescent being the sunrise and the waning crescent the sunset phase of a day observed from afar.[2]”

You should see it when people make it so you can see stars through the dark part of the crescent moon, THAT’S not how the moon works. This, is a stylized Crescent moon that looks cool and is kind of an homage to the Sailor Moon Moon!

Didn’t you know Sage? You have to be 100% scientifically accurate about all things all the time, if you don’t the internet will be very sad

Joking aside, there are actually 5 common things people “do wrong” when drawing the moon, and you only did 3 of them, and one of them (the moon is too big) is pretty minor

The 3rd “wrong” thing you did is that a crescent moon rises and sets pretty close to when the sun does, it wouldn’t be nighttime when it’s that high in the sky (this one is also pretty minor, because how can you have a beautiful nighttime image without the moon?)

In defense of Sage (and Sune), the apparent size of Moon and other high angle objects are still unexplained with apparent psychological moments. So “too big” or “cute sized mooning, fits me” is in the eye of the beholder and unless overly big or small it should be given a pass.

A long treatise on the topic is referenced by the Bad Illustr … Astronomer Phil Plait in “Misconceptions: Hang a Bad Moon”. I haven’t read it all, but the end seems to relate a preference for a model that stands basic smell tests:
“Trehub postulates that we are born with a subconscious cognitive processing mechanism that is innate. It is a result of evolutionary necessity for devoting more visual processing resources to nearby space, and space at eye level, but fewer resources to things seen at higher elevation. Therefore the angular size of objects at eye level is perceived as greater than the angular size of the same objects seen when looking upward. This model does not rule out the possibility that such perceptions can be modified through experience and by particular sets of visual cues. Such cognitive models may serve as a guideline for experimental investigations, but direct experimental confirmation of all of a model’s details is necessary before it can be considered a physically and biologically correct explanation. …
… The final word has not yet been written on this subject.” [Donald Simanek, “The Moon Illusion,
An Unsolved Mystery.”

Do we know this guy and what his obsession is? It’s been a while since I had a re-read so my memory is a bit fuzzy regarding faces.

We’ll get to it- It’s a side story I wanted to do for fun while we visit Japan again. Since I can’t just have the comic be Kate and Phil banging for months… Comic tone would shift drastically. I do some spicy stuff sometimes but that would be too much…

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