Conjunctions as the Golden Chain.

Rheticus,the student of Copernicus,wrote this as heliocentrism started
to gather momentum and especially as the present conjunction is now
visible it is worthwhile for observers to see the excitement it
generated among the first heliocentrists and especially the conjunction
of Mars,Jupiter and Saturn in 1503-04



"With regard to the apparent motions of the Sun and Moon, it is perhaps
possible to deny what is said about the motion of the Earth, although I
do not see how the explanation of precession is to be transferred to
the sphere of the stars. But if anyone desires to look either to the
order and harmony of the system of the spheres, or to ease and elegance
and a complete explanation of the causes of the phenomena, by no other
hypotheses will he demonstrate more neatly and correctly the apparent
motions of the remaining planets. For all these phenomena appear to be
linked most nobly together, as by a golden chain; and each of the
planets, by its position and order and very inequality of its motion,
bears witness that the Earth moves. . . . "
1540, Narratio Prima


Copernicus would have seen the golden chain of Mars,Jupiter and Saturn
in conjunction,how the faster moving Jupiter overtook the slower Saturn
and Mars bypass both only to slow down,stop and lag behind Jupiter and
Saturn and then bypass them again as it came out of retrograde.

All seen through the center of our planet's orbit,is it not the real
experience of astronomy to not just witness these golden chains but to
put them into heliocentric perspective.

Does any amateur astronomer wish to see the insight of Copernicus
mangled and twisted towards something that is anti-astronomical in
content and character -

http://www.answers.com/topic/copernican-principle


Anyone who treasures the present conjunction should also feel some
remorse that the wider population does not know what relevence these
things have,not because they are silly and have no interest but because
the theorists have given them sand to eat for the last 100 years.

http://vms.cc.wmich.edu/~mcgrew/chain.htm