Watching Mercury today

https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data...current_c3.gif

https://www.theplanetstoday.com/

Remember now, the back and forth motions of the slower moving planets are gauged against the background stars but the back and forth motions (direct/retrograde motions) of the faster planets are gauged to the central Sun.

Some openly admit they have no idea how to interpret the imaging and that is fine, not everyone can be an astronomer and know how and why to partition the faster and slower planets by perspectives seen from a moving Earth.

Just discovered the Soho Lasco imaging and it is fascinating regardless of which year the timelapse is produced. Pity none of you have any influence but it will make it into wider circulation anyway and especially watching the change in position of the stars minus stellar circumpolar motion and due solely to the orbital motion of the Earth with the satellite tracking our orbital motion.

On Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 11:23:06 AM UTC-8, Gerald Kelleher wrote:

Just discovered the Soho Lasco imaging and it is fascinating...

.... and has been fascinating for the last 30 years!

You are just a little late to the party...

On Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 4:28:23 AM UTC, palsing wrote:
On Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 11:23:06 AM UTC-8, Gerald Kelleher wrote:

Just discovered the Soho Lasco imaging and it is fascinating...

... and has been fascinating for the last 30 years!

You are just a little late to the party...

It is as much a celebration of satellite imaging as anything else, however, in much the same way as Galileo applied his unparalleled use of the telescope, he allowed that it was interpretation in the absence of magnification that makes it all worthwhile -

"But the telescope plainly shows us its horns [Venus] to be as bounded and distinct as those of the moon, and they are seen to belong to a very large circle, in a ratio almost forty times as great as the same disc when it is beyond the sun, toward the end of its morning appearances.

SAGR. Oh Nicholas Copernicus, what a pleasure it would have been for you to see this part of your system confirmed by so clear an experiment!

SALV. Yes, but how much less would his sublime intellect be celebrated among the learned! For as I said before, we may see that with reason as his guide he resolutely continued to affirm what sensible experience seemed to contradict. I cannot get over my amazement that he was constantly willing to persist in saying that Venus might go around the sun and be more than six times as far from us at one time than at other times as at another, and still look always equal, when it should have appeared forty times larger." Galileo

Even you now can say that previously astronomers believed that the direct/retrogrades of Venus and Mercury were gauged against the background stars, after all, this is the flawed animation you provided before -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYYwNvjr7Lg

That view is now gone as the Earth's orbital motion and a fixed central Sun shows the back and forth motions of Venus and Mercury in the inner solar system with the Sun's glare largely screened out -

https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data...current_c3.gif


Celebrate something wonderful for a change as this is here to stay and not to leave. Maybe you are just completely immune to something good and wish to go on biting just for the sake of it yet I do these things for those who can make sense of imaging rather than those who won't or can't adapt for subculture reasons.

On Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 11:28:23 PM UTC-5, palsing wrote:
On Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 11:23:06 AM UTC-8, Gerald Kelleher wrote:

Just discovered the Soho Lasco imaging and it is fascinating...

... and has been fascinating for the last 30 years!

You are just a little late to the party...

Have you checked out this Website?

https://aerospace.org/node/6966

There is no point waiting for a response as generally the less thoughtful are distracted by trivia and nuisances willing to scribble graffiti on a working astronomical proposition.

Although this period is rather delicate although the conclusions are robust in line with imaging, there is no harm offering a glimpse for those interested in orbital dynamics. As the Sun is central and all stellar circumpolar motion is subtracted, the change in position of the stars from the fixed central point of the Sun will show variations in the speed by which those stars move from left to right of the Sun in response to the orbital motion of the Earth. Stellar circumpolar motion swamps this observation as proponents of RA/Dec don't take these things into consideration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L74B98ITKEA&t=84s

There is no point either in grumbling about priority when there is so much to do and besides, investigating astronomical imaging as a frontier is more exciting than trying to drag people kicking and screaming to that frontier.. Celebrate satellite imaging if it is all people can manage but the insight is here to stay.

On Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 8:40:36 AM UTC-5, Gerald Kelleher wrote:
There is no point waiting for a response as generally the less thoughtful are
distracted by trivia...

You should stop there. palsing probably is distracted by trivia, but let's wait to see if he says whether he has ever visited the link that I posted earlier.

On Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 2:21:15 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 11:28:23 PM UTC-5, palsing wrote:
On Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 11:23:06 AM UTC-8, Gerald Kelleher wrote:

Just discovered the Soho Lasco imaging and it is fascinating...

... and has been fascinating for the last 30 years!

You are just a little late to the party...

Have you checked out this Website?

https://aerospace.org/node/6966

I have now. It is about the deorbiting of an Iridium satellite. What does this have to do with anything else being discussed here?

On Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 11:03:07 PM UTC-8, Gerald Kelleher wrote:
On Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 4:28:23 AM UTC, palsing wrote:
On Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 11:23:06 AM UTC-8, Gerald Kelleher wrote:

Just discovered the Soho Lasco imaging and it is fascinating...

... and has been fascinating for the last 30 years!

You are just a little late to the party...

Even you now can say that previously astronomers believed that the direct/retrogrades of Venus and Mercury were gauged against the background stars, after all, this is the flawed animation you provided before -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYYwNvjr7Lg

Except... it is not flawed, it is exactly what you would see from the surface of the Earth if only the Sun was not so bright and often 'in the way'. It is just your own logic that is flawed. The motions of the inner planets can be gauged over time with respect to the Sun, sure, but the can also be gauged against the background stars. It doesn't change anything, it is just another perspective to be, as you like to say, enjoyed.

Just because you are not capable of understanding this perspective does not render it invalid.

Gerald Kelleher wrote:

https://www.theplanetstoday.com/
So you’ve finally realised. You have given a link to a site which
demonstrates perfectly that from the point of view of the Sun there are no
retrogrades.

On Friday, January 25, 2019 at 12:09:00 AM UTC, Mike Collins wrote:
Gerald Kelleher wrote:

https://www.theplanetstoday.com/
So you’ve finally realised. You have given a link to a site which
demonstrates perfectly that from the point of view of the Sun there are no
retrogrades.

I understood where a brexit mentality comes from as eccentricity is celebrated as a sign of brilliance among a certain section of British society hence the current mayhem where everyone has their own ideas but nobody has the discipline to pursue a common sense outcome. The same thing happened in late 17th century England when mathematicians fancied themselves as astronomers and so it remains to this day.

I have moved away from the attempt by theorists to call attention to themselves insofar as the partitioning of direct/retrogrades by perspectives seen from a moving Earth takes precedence. Copernicus and the original Sun centred astronomers, including Galileo, got half the picture right for the slower moving planets but not for the faster moving Venus and Mercury.

Accounting for the direct/retrogrades of the slower moving planets rely on relative speeds where a central Sun is inferred rather than observed but the illusory loops in the geocentric system disappear once the observer accepts the Earth moves , in the following case overtaking Jupiter and Saturn -

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

Now that the Earth travels through space and the Sun is central to all planetary motions, it is then relatively easy using satellite imaging to look at the inner solar system and the faster moving planets -

https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data...current_c3.gif

The Earth's orbital motion is accounted for by the change in position of the stars along the orbital plane thereby setting the Sun up as a central reference. The planet Mercury in that current timelapse is thereby moving behind the Sun in its faster and smaller circuit.

So, after 500 years since Copernicus first accounted for direct/retrogrades of the slower moving planets by realising the Earth moves between Venus and Mars, there is an additional perspective to take into account with its own reasoning and physical considerations.

Many websites are partially adopting the correct view but do not apply the major innovation which is screening out stellar circumpolar motion , something which is just as important as screening out the Sun's glare.