On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 11:36:52 PM UTC, palsing wrote:
On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 9:59:27 AM UTC-8, Gerald Kelleher wrote:
http://www.popastro.com/images/plane...ary%202012.jpg

Just where does one need to be standing to see this particular view?


The same place you see the motions of Jupiter's satellites as they run their circuits around their parent planet -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcrBAuLBXag


There are of course notable differences as Venus moves from right to left (direct) from behind the Sun and from left to right between the Earth and the Sun (retrograde). There is no real opposition to the sequence of phases which point to a central/stationary Sun and the smaller/faster circuit of Venus apart from small people who have made astronomy smaller than themselves..

http://www.popastro.com/images/plane...ary%202012.jpg

The header of the image fills in all the information needed in terms of time it took to assemble the montage.


Being the first people who can discern between the imaginary loops of the slower moving planets seen from a moving Earth and the actual loops of the faster moving Venus and Mercury relies on a simple observation which uses the transition of the stars from an evening to morning appearance in setting the Sun up as a central reference.


This is the way direct/retrogrades work and will eventually be taught whereas today it only exists in this much maligned newsgroup.