A common sense modification

The original heliocentric astronomers worked off the original geocentric foundation where all celestial objects,including the Sun, moved through the celestial sphere background.

". . . 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." Kepler 1596, Mysterium Cosmographicum

The new approach is entirely different and immeasurably more accessible to anyone who wishes to account for the motions of the Earth by partitioining perspective between the inner and outer planets.

The Earth's orbital motion is accounted for by switching the perspective to the apparent motion of the background stars in sequence behind Sun from the older and obstructive notion of the apparent motion of the Sun through the field of background stars -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdFrE7hWj0A


The more accurate view sets the Sun up as a central reference thereby allowing a grandstand view of the inner planets and especially Venus and its phases as it swings out from behind the Sun to its widest point before swing back in front of the Sun -

http://www.masil-astro-imaging.com/S...age%20flat.jpg


So now readers know the components which set up the perspective for the inner planets and why it was obscured by the less productive view. This is the first modification of retrogrades since Copernicus accurately envisioned the solution of outer retrogrades which refers the Earth's faster orbital motion to the slower moving outer planets.

Apart from the astrological websites there is hardly any mention of inner planetary retrogrades and those that do venture an explanation look ridiculous -

"Mercury moves faster than the Earth as it travels around the Sun; however, Mercury has a highly elliptical orbit, so the speed of its orbit changes. When Mercury is furthest from the Sun, it's at the slowest point in its orbit, and this gives the Earth a chance to "catch up". Imagine you're driving next to a car in the freeway which is speeding up and slowing down. It's still going down the highway at a high speed, but it seems to be going back and forth compared to you. When this happens, astronomers say that Mercury is in retrograde."

http://www.universetoday.com/22135/mercury-retrograde/


The motions of Venus and Mercury against the background stars are fairly straightforward as they swing out and then swing back in front of the central Sun, after all, retrogrades are defined as the observed motion against the stellar background.

The partitioning of retrograde perspective between the inner and outer planets is not going to go away and why should it. I believe people can and will enjoy the reasoning which accounts for retrogrades differently insofar as the Earth's orbital motion is extrapolated in separate ways. The more familiar outer planetary retrogrades is a conch using relative speeds between the faster moving Earth and the slower moving outer planets -

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap011220.html

The retrogrades of the inner planets are just as spectacular with just the slightest shift in perspective. The key is accounting for the Earth's orbital motion when looking towards the motion of the planets within the inner solar system which sets the Sun up as a central reference as the stars move behind the Sun in sequence -

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


People are now so familiar with putting the phases of Venus in context of its orbital motion in respect to the Sun as a matter of course so it only really leaves a major issue - how to account for the Earth's slower orbital motion within that perspective. It is not going to appeal to the largely traditionalist magnification people who take pleasure in identifying objects within a celestial sphere framework but it is there anyway for those who are a bit more imaginative when looking into the celestial arena.

The great astrological tradition we inherited from antiquity noted the passage of the Sun through the constellations and subsequently the framework of birth signs which determine the orbital position of the Earth at our birth..

The astronomer today can take a more productive look with just the slightest shift in perspective towards the annual disappearance and re-appearance of the stars behind the Sun made possible by the Earth's own orbital motion -

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

Unlike the outer planets where relative speeds count in determining the motion of the Earth and those planets, the inner planets have a more intimate perspective of our motion and place in the solar system. In truth, most people already know the magnificent loop of Venus through its phases but what was missing from the picture was how the Earth's orbital motion factored in to the perspective. Apart from a minor input of slowing or accelerating the time the inner planets reach their greatest elongation, the greatest bulk of the Earth's orbital motion is setting the Sun up as a central reference by using the annual apparent motion of the stars in sequence behind the Sun.

Jolly good.
Now you've explained yourself, there's no need to say anything more is
there?
Your job is done; go, thou good and faithful servant; and if you find
yourself with the opportunity to reproduce - I suggest you take it -
preferably first (as they say).

On Friday, May 29, 2015 at 2:21:06 AM UTC+1, Jim Newman wrote:
Jolly good.
Now you've explained yourself, there's no need to say anything more is
there?
Your job is done; go, thou good and faithful servant; and if you find
yourself with the opportunity to reproduce - I suggest you take it -
preferably first (as they say).

The reception of the resolution for outer planetary retrogrades was spectacular among those who cared about astronomy even though their group was smaller in number -

" Now what is said here of Jupiter is to be understood of Saturn and Mars also. In Saturn these retrogressions are somewhat more frequent than in Jupiter, because its motion is slower than Jupiter's, so that the Earth overtakes it in a shorter time. In Mars they are rarer, its motion being faster than that of Jupiter, so that the Earth spends more time in catching up with it. Next, as to Venus and Mercury, whose circles are included within that of the Earth, stoppings and retrograde motions appear in them also, due not to any motion that really exists in them, but to the annual motion of the Earth. This is acutely demonstrated by Copernicus . . .

You see, gentlemen, with what ease and simplicity the annual motion -- if made by the Earth -- lends itself to supplying reasons for the apparent anomalies which are observed in the movements of the five planets. . . . It removes them all and reduces these movements to equable and regular motions; and it was Nicholas Copernicus who first clarified for us the reasons for this marvelous effect." 1632, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

Even the great Galileo didn't realize the need to partition the perspectives between inner and outer retrograde resolutions as the perspective for the Earth's orbital input would have sat awkwardly within the framework the original heliocentric astronomers used.

It is not a question of the lack of gratitude, many astrophotographers already put the observation of Venus in proper context of its orbital motion around the Sun including its increase in size -

http://www.popastro.com/images/plane...ary%202012.jpg

It only leaves the inputs supplied by the Earth's own orbital motion and that is the breakthrough. In a world dominated by empiricists ideologies which won't even recognize the outer planetary retrograde resolution it means coming here and periodically keeping the dual perspectives front and center until they become second nature.