There were too many houses where I lived and also too many streetlamps, making the Moon harder to see. It was important for me to be able to see the horizon, because the Moon would rise eclipsed. I went with my parents to the closest park because it allowed us to see more of the sky and was darker there. I used binoculars to get a closer and more detailed look at the Moon. This allowed me to see the color, structure, and shadow line on the Moon better.
Lunar eclipses are quietly impressive sights.
As the Moon trundles in its orbit around Earth, it occasionally passes through our world's shadow, and our bright tiny companion is slowly devoured by darkness. Earth, like the Moon, is just a big ball, and you know from looking at a basketball that a ball always casts a round shadow. The ancient Greeks knew this, too, and they saw Earth's circular shadow on the Moon during lunar eclipses. So forget the notion that ol' Chris Columbus was the one who discovered Earth to be round. He, like other learned people in his era, knew from those Greek eclipse observations that our planet is just a big ball.