Semi-minor Axis

To Mike

There is a good reason why Kepler assigned 3 approaches to astronomical
material -

"To set down in books the apparent paths of the planets [viasplanetarum

apparentes] and the record of their motions is especiallythe task of
the practical and mechanical part of astronomy; to discover their true
and genuine path [vias vero veras et genuinas] is . . .the task of
contemplative astronomy; while to say by what circle and lines correct
images of those true motions may be depicted on paper is the concern of

the inferior tribunal of geometers" Kepler

Don't be disappointed that you are assigned the term 'inferior' in
Kepler's estimation for left to your own devices you make a mess of
everything you touch.Your statement about astronomers is just what you
expect from an empirical maggot for astronomers such as Kepler worked
with mean orbital motions through the center of a planet's
heliocentric orbit and not mean Sun/Earth distances -

"The proportion existing between the periodic times of any two planets
is exactly the sesquiplicate proportion of the mean distances of the
orbits, or as generally given,the squares of the periodic times are
proportional to the cubes of the mean distances." Kepler

How many have been turned off astronomy by a few equations from
Newtonian astrologuers,people who cannot make their observations of
planetary motion,and especially that of the Earth, fit with anything
other than a celestial sphere backed by a calendar system of a 4 year
and 1 day cycle.

There are practical/optical astronomers and then there are the great
contemplative astronomers such as Copernicus and Kepler,the sooner the
former strive to recover the association with the latter rather than
leave data in the hands of dumb theorists ,who are not even geometers,
the better.

After all the equational fireworks,you and JG can't fit your
distinctly Newtonian .986 deg orbital displacement into an elliptical
framework and get the Earth to move slower at the aphelion -

http://www.pfm.howard.edu/astronomy/...S/AACHCIR0.JPG

That is how close you are to the same conceptual oblivion as Tychonian
quasi-geocentricity ultimately was -

http://web.hao.ucar.edu/public/educa.../tychonian.gif

Humanity and the great astronomers have done nothing to deserve the
utter pretensiousness that buries easily understandable and enjoyable
astronomical thinking under a blizzard of equations which conceal a
Newtonian astrological system at its heart.How many kids who are
naturally talented at astronomy find themselves suffering a loss they
have no outlet for,the outlet is blocked by empirical equational
garbage or diluted by optical astronomy,the former to make the
investigator bigger than the material itself and the latter to simply
make the observed object bigger.

The one sign of hope last year is that in the medical discipline there
were enough men of stature to openly and publically reign in a person
who manipulated his research ,the only area this does not happen is
astronomy insofar as no people of stature exist .

It is my hope that those in the U.K. who do possibly see where a wrong
turn was made can organise themselves into a distinct group to
effectively restore the nobility of astronomy back to its original
position as requiring the highest faculties or man in reasoning,in
discipline,in productive avenues for planetary and animate
evolution,for better understanding of geology and climatology,for sheer
enjoyment of the scale and size of the cosmological cycles and as a
mark of our civilisations existence as responsible inheritors from past
civilisations.