Anatomy of a conceptual disaster

The major difficulty in the transition from geocentricity to observations seen from a moving Earth was how to place the antecedent geocentric observations into a Sun centered framework. The short answer is that it is impossible.

The geocentric observations of the outer planets had the familiar looping motions but without the aid of telescopes it was difficult to take account of the size and luminosity increases which support a moving Earth -

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/100...otated_big.jpg

When the images are rendered in time lapse it becomes easy enough to gauge the faster motion of the Earth overtaking the outer planets and causing them to fall behind in view -

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/011...2000_tezel.gif


Returning to the use of the geocentric observations, Kepler had used the looping motions and retained the notion of a moving Sun in tandem with those observations -

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...retrograde.jpg

". . . 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, Kepler

The framework for retrogrades and their transition to heliocentric modelling does not work for the inner planets as phases attend observations which prohibit a looping motion without the central Sun as a focus -

http://astronomer.wpengine.netdna-cd...s_of_venus.jpg


I would have expected that a few would take pride in the elaborate reasoning using imaging which shows the shortfalls in the multiple perspectives between geocentricity and original heliocentricity, the mutations of empiricism and more importantly the adjustments to the original framework used by the first heliocentric astronomers to 21st century perspectives. It means readers must be accustomed to at least 4 different system's before coming to a clearer and less tangled perspective but that being said it is just as easy to adopt the 21st century imaging tools and learn the narratives that way..