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Old February 12th 19, 05:35 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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Default The comets and the inner solar system

On Tuesday, February 12, 2019 at 4:58:54 AM UTC-7, Mike Collins wrote:

If you had any interest in comets you would be out with a pair of
binoculars observing them with and without magnification rather than
staring at YouTube images or googling information about a comet you never
saw from a decade ago.


Now, now. We all should know that he looks upon _that_ sort of interest in
comets with contempt as a mere "magnification exercise". Instead, he is
interested in comets for the truth they can reveal.

He did not, though, elaborate on how comets confirm his idiosyncratic view of
the Solar System. But it could simply be that he agrees with you, in his own
way, that it is expected that comets will brighten in a Copernican solar system
from getting closer to the Sun - thus, it's a remarkable proof that Ptolemy was
wrong, and he sometimes seems to be laboring under the delusion that
professional astronomers these days are covert Ptolemaicists.

John Savard