On Tuesday, May 15, 2018 at 9:45:07 PM UTC+1, palsing wrote:


Finally, look for the graphics near the bottom of this page...

http://www.nakedeyeplanets.com/venus...htm#8yearcycle


The phases of Venus dictate its position to the Sun as seen from a slower moving Earth so in effect we see that faster moving planet runs its smaller orbital circuit around our parent star in much the same way we see Jupiter's satellites run around the parent planet -

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

Using this perspective as an anchor insofar as the Sun is always central as we see phase development of the orbit of Venus, the change in the position of the stars to a moving Venus and the stationary Sun becomes the dominant feature as the motion of the Earth creates that change -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdFrE7hWj0A


The first Sun centered astronomers were chained to the predictive Greek framework where everything, including the Sun, moved through the constellations so that direct/retrograde resolution wasn't partitioned for the faster and slower moving planets seen from Earth -

Kepler
". . . the ancient hypotheses clearly fail to account for certain important matters. For example, they do not comprehend the causes of the numbers, extents and durations of the retrogradations and of their agreeing so well with the position and mean motion of the sun. Copernicus alone gives an explanation to those things that provoke astonishment among other astronomers, thus destroying the source of astonishment, which lies in the ignorance of the causes." 1596, Mysterium Cosmographicum


Whether you approach the insight in simple or complex form, the narrative stands as something new even though the pieces were always there.