Wow, I actually get the complete opposite feeling from my astro shots. Grabbing that much light from something so far away makes me feel like we're bigger than we think, you know? Our dumb little tools can pull in photons that have been traveling for over two million years. It's less about being small and more about how crazy it is that we can even do this from our own planet. Makes the whole distance thing feel weirdly close.
Yeah but you're mixing up time and distance there. The light from Andromeda is 2.5 million light-years old, not years. It's a unit of distance. That's what makes it feel small to me - we're seeing a whole galaxy as it was before humans even existed.
I mean, idk, but this reminds me of how old stuff can feel both distant and close. Like finding an old toy and suddenly it's like no time passed. Maybe it's just me, but that mix is everywhere, not just space.