Perception is of either things or facts.
People have believed all manner of superstitious things about the eclipses they observed. Other ways of describing what we perceive are variations on these two themes. In seeing where he went, when he left, who went with him, and how he was dressed we are describing the perception of some fact without revealing exactly what fact it is. We perceive things on television, in the movies, and on records. One sees that the gas tank is empty by seeing not the gas tank, but the gas gauge and the fact that it reads 'empty'.