So the lunar eclipse is Friday morning for anyone in the Western Hemisphere - or the Americas for those of the flat earth belief.

Flat Earth gets a lot of interest on here. As I've mentioned, no one trusts anyone else's sources, so I propose we do our own experiments, to the best of our ability, and remove third party claims whether it be NASA or a resourceful man with lasers.

A scientific result rests on the premise that it can be repeated and the same result found, so if anyone is game, I propose we do what we can with what we have at hand.

PROPOSITION I
It was proposed that a shadow is always bigger or the same size as the object that casts it. I understood that as meaning that a sphere cannot cast a shadow smaller than itself. I did the experiment and you can indeed create a smaller shadow (umbra) if the light source is bigger than the object. I linked a video in that thread - that video is a third party, but it is for replicating the experiment, not believing the content of the video. 

PROPOSITION II
It was proposed also that a spherical object casting a shadow onto another sphere results in a shadow that's actually a straight line. From what I can see, this happens only when viewing a spherical object perpendicular to a light source - from the side as it were. However, when viewed straight on, the shadow would be round. I have done the experiement and tried to attach the photo but it seems you can only upload images from an url. But, you can do the same experiment. I used the same setup as the previous experiment and added another styrofoam ball, all in line with the light source. The furtherest ball from the light is completely eclipsed by the first ball if viewed straight on, but if you tap the furtherest ball just a tad to the side, it catches the edge of the shadow cast by the sphere before it, and there is clearly a curve. It would appear a sphere casts a curved shadow upon another sphere.

The rest of the propositions were beyond what I could replicate in my house.

With what was looked at, in theory, a spherical earth can cast a circular shadow onto the moon. And I posit that that is what we can see this Friday if anyone has the time and can afford to lose the sleep - you just need to have a window and some patience as it will take a good 3 hours if you want to catch the whole thing.

The black sun theory I think is problematic. It's hard to find a model of flat earth that is universally believed, so I'm just going to offer the one I think most common on this forum. If the flat earth model being presented posits that the sun never goes underneath the earth or even to its rim but always circles above the face of the plane, then it would seem certain that the earth's shadow is not what is being cast upon the moon. However, it is being reported by astronomers that only the Western hemisphere/Americas will see the eclipse. If we decide to accept that report, and apply it to this flat earth model, this would mean that the black sun/celestial object has to be sitting above the Arctic, as that's the demarcation line where the sun's light is blocked from the western hemisphere/Americas. As well, if the black sun is causing the shadow, this would mean it has one side facing the sun, thus making the black sun visible to Asia. There should be at least one report from someone somewhere seeing the sun illuminate such an astonishing undocuмented object. Compounding this is that if the entire Americas down to Antarctica are able to see the full eclipse, then that means the moon has to be over Antarctica, or the ice wall if you will, since the eclipse cannot be viewed if under or looking at the backside of the moon - that area would just be darkness, not red as the eclipsed portion of the moon will be. I have a friend in Brazil who will be watching, but that will be the furthest I can get a report from.

Or we can dismiss the report of what regions can see the eclipse and just use our own networks. I have friends in Brazil and Australia as my furthest contacts.

As I said, it is very difficult to construct a model of the flat earth as there is not much agreement or observation of it as a system. Occam's razor would seem to suggest the Earth is in the way of the sun, hence the shadow on the moon.

Anyone going to stay up and ponder?

Ah no worries. I see your clarification. Super close is relative. The size of the light source is also relative. The common report is that the sun is 109x bigger than the earth. I guess the experiment to do is to put in the proposed distance of the globe earth from a sun 109x bigger than that earth and see if an umbra is apparent. I don't think I have a light source big enough to do that.

To be precise, in regard to the solar eclipse scenario you referenced, the eclipsed portion of the earth is in the umbra, which is smaller than the object casting it, which we have established as possible. The entire shadow, if including the penumbra, is much larger than the object casting it - the moon - but those in the penumbra would be viewing a partial eclipse. I drove to see the solar eclipse this year past, and this umbra and penumbra phenomenon is what I experienced.