On Mon, 11 Aug 2003, "Ron Larham" wrote:
"Top Professional" wrote in message
...
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AS A PUBLIC SERVICE to newcomers and other interested visitors
to astronomy newsgroups I've put aside my natural contempt for
the "amateurs" and "avoiders" who clutter up these fine groups
with their mouldy tripe, just so that independent readers like
you can learn the truth about how ancient stargazers could see
the progressive motion of the planets in the night sky, and as
a result of watching the night sky over mere decades were able
to easily deduce the following facts about the visible planets:

[snip]
I'm just curious, but how many times have _you_ seen
mercury?

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Actually being so near in orbit around the Sun, Mercury
can be spotted only when near first or third quarter or
about half-lit. Mercury begins to close the distance to
Earth when coming around the far side of the Sun, hence
Mercury's bright limb begins to wane as Mercury's phase
of Virgo begins to wax. Near inferior conjunction, with
Virgo completed, Mercury's bright limb begins to wax as
Mercury's phase of Gemini also begins to wax as Mercury
begins receding from the Earth. Around a fortnight into
this second phase--that of Gemini--Mercury becomes visi-
ble at heliacal rising, against the background of stars:

*stars
/
~
*Sun ~
| /
| *Mercury
| /
| /
--|------/--minimum elongation 18 degrees
| / maximum elongation 28 degrees
| /
| /
| /
| /
|/
*Earth

Because Mercury repeats its synodic phase approximately
every 116 solar Earth-days, the background stars appear
to shift behind Mercury by about 115.9 / 365.26 days or
about 114 sidereal degrees...almost four constellations
east of Mercury's previous heliacal rising by long-term
averages. Not only did this prove to prehistoric humans
and other fairly intelligent hominids that Mercury does
in fact orbit the Sun, but also that Mercury is nearest
to the Sun of all the planets, and has a sidereal orbit
averaging 88 days and is steeply inclined by around 7.0
degrees to Earth's ecliptic. Its eccentric orbit 0.2056
is over a fifth difference between major and minor axis,
so Mercury's synodic orbit varies by up to several days.

As a result, Mercury has for millions of years appeared
to Earth-bound observers to average ~85 synodic periods
every 27 tropical years, making ~191 sidereal orbits of
Mercury every 145 synodic periods and 46 tropical years
on average. Of course over such a long time as millions
of sidereal Earth-years, the orbital motions of planets,
and the length of days & years, has dynamically evolved
with the solar system. But the fundamental principle of
astronomical observations and counting the days, months
and years between observations has remained intact, and
proves that prehistoric man knew that the planets orbit
the Sun, and that ancient & antediluvian men have known
that the planets orbit the Sun ever since. This in turn
proves that the much-lauded "Copernican Revolution" was
no more than an exercise in frivolous subterfuge & self-
aggrandizement on the part of ignorant & arrogant fools
who it seems never bothered to look up at the night sky.

Daniel Joseph Min

*Min's Accusations Against Copernicus:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...amesh-frog.org

*Min's Planetary Awareness Technique (chapters 1 thru 6):
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...amesh-frog.org

*Min's Official PGP Public Key on the MIT server:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...amesh-frog.org

*Min's Home Page On The World Wide Web:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...amesh-frog.org

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