Astronomical Observations - Part 1

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Any modern astronomy program will work for this lesson.
I recommend using the freeware Astrolog 5.41G with the
freeware JPL-DE406 Swiss Ephemeris, Carte du Ciel 2.75
which is also freeware, and includes links to download
dozens of freeware catalogues and other plugin options,
or check out the SkyMap 9 demo version on my links URL:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...amesh-frog.org

This is very basic, and will show you how every planet
visible to the naked eye, which includes the Sun, Moon,
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, & Uranus,
this will show you how these planets move as seen from
the Earth in conspicuously repetitious and predictable
patterns which are easily counted by days, months, and
years between repeating sidereal and synodic multiples.

This absolutely destroys any and all arguments against
the ancients being perfectly able to see the motion of
the planets against the night sky and counting by days,
months and years to predict sidereal & synodic periods
for each planet at least out to Saturn and possibly to
Uranus, since it rarely can be seen with the naked eye.
This is a big deal because secular academia has closed
their eyes to timeless science and its reproducibility.
This clearly transcends simple astronomy, but includes
astrology, metaphysics, and all spiritual implications.

Limit your program to what is visible to the naked eye.
No guesswork & no speculation. Your astronomy software
reliably emulates what we'd see when viewing the night
sky in that direction, at that time from that location,
conveniently, efficiently and with impressive accuracy.
Of course, the view is better through a good telescope,
or through the unaided, human eye, since it is assumed
that ancients didn't have other means to see the stars.
That's a humongous ad hoc assumption, but I'm granting
modern-day atheistic science that much and I still win.
Accurate positions of planets and stars is all we need
for this lesson. Your favorite software will work fine.
No telescope needed. We can see this all with our eyes,
so reduce your software's star magnitude limit to five,
and assume Uranus, Neptune and Pluto to be nonexistent
(not as Gods, but to pacify the unbelieving scientist).

For this lesson, we're concerned only with heliacal ri-
sings of each planet separately, which depends only on
sufficient angle between the planet and the Sun, so it
can be spotted against background stars before sunrise.
The Sun must be about 18 degrees below the horizon for
full darkness and a little less for heliacal phenomena.
This angle varies with each planet, and each star, and
time of year, temperature, pressure, how good your eye-
sight is, the geographical latitude of observation and
local horizon, obstructions and circumstances of light
pollution, smog, haze from forest fires, volcanos, etc.

While these conditions can vary to extremes, generally,
provided reasonably good seeing conditions towards the
eastern horizon about an hour or so before sunrise, as
you look to the east (from moderate latitudes) you can
barely make out a planet that you expect to see rising
heliacally on or about that date. If you miss it, then
try again in a couple of days and you're bound to spot
the planet you're looking for if it's Mars, Jupiter or
Saturn; or plan ahead and begin looking sooner if it's
Mercury whose orbit you can see is eccentric. You know
that each planet has predictable orbital patterns, and
although these patterns vary over the short-term, over
the long-term they become more and more predictable to
fractions of a degree in sidereal longitude & latitude.
That's how you know that Venus is the most predictable,
since Venus has the least eccentric orbit. We see this
behavior of Venus through heliacal risings or settings,
especially at maximum elongations inferior or superior.

If getting up at four in the morning is not your style,
simply open your astronomy program and set it for your
geographical location and voilla! You're ready to view
to heliacal risings of every planet--against the stars.
In the next part we focus on Saturn's heliacal risings.

End Part 1. See Part 2 For Continuation...
Daniel Joseph Min

*Min's Planetary Awareness Technique (chapters 1 thru 6):
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...amesh-frog.org

*Min's Official PGP Public Key on the MIT server:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...amesh-frog.org

*Min's Home Page On The World Wide Web:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...amesh-frog.org


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