Mercury overtakes Jupiter

ps200306

Mercury enters retrograde today, Feb 17th. It will come into SOHO's view early on Feb 22nd. It will enter from above centre left, moving faster than the drifting stars and accelerating. The view will be roughly like this, with the Sun on the ecliptic line below Ancha:



Viewed against a fixed star field, Mercury is in a retrograde loop. But you won't see this on SOHO because the narrow window will show only the positions marked in red, and you won't get to see onset and end of retrograde. In any case, you won't see the stars in fixed positions. Ancha is circled below. The field of view here is about 40 degrees, compared to SOHO's 15 degrees.

oriel36

Mercury is presently seen approaching the Earth in our mutual orbits around the central stationary Sun -

https://www.theplanetstoday.com/

https://sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/

Mercury is moving faster than the change in position of the background stars (due to the orbital motion of the Earth) hence this is the equivalent of retrograde motion in the old geocentric framework.

Although Venus provides a better spectacle with its phases taken over a longer period, the bridge between a transit of Mercury and its actual circuit of the Sun can be filled in with that corridor of time lapse demonstrating both the relationship of the faster Mercury to our slower moving planet and both planets to the inner solar system and the central Sun.


Mercury will begin to dim as reaches the point where it passes between the slower Earth and the Sun in much the same way as it appears during a transit -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yNzSwlnQ2Q&t=10s


This is another facet added to an expanding astronomical narrative for those who admire a planet transit and then move on to the larger picture where Mercury and Venus move rapidly from left to right in their circuits of the Sun. There is no necessity to wait for another 12 years to watch Mercury overtake the Earth as it happens regularly using satellite equipment and imaging that can only improve with time.

ps200306

oriel36 wrote: »

Mercury is presently seen approaching the Earth in our mutual orbits around the central stationary Sun...

Mercury will begin to dim as reaches the point where it passes between the slower Earth and the Sun in much the same way as it appears during a transit...

There is no necessity to wait for another 12 years to watch Mercury overtake the Earth as it happens regularly using satellite equipment and imaging that can only improve with time.

Of course, there was no need to wait even a few months as it's quite possible to visualise the spectacle any time you want using the evil RA/Dec software, Stellarium. That's what allowed me to predict that Mercury would appear in the SOHO view early on Feb 22nd and, sure enough, it appeared at 4 am. The SOHO view on the left (with some orientation markers added) is quite easily comparable to my Stellarium view is on the right (minus Mercury and the Sun), even though stars near the Sun are washed out in the SOHO view:



The evil RA/Dec software also allows me to predict that Mercury will not disappear from view due to its shrinking crescent. It will get no dimmer than magnitude 5.3, slightly brighter than the star ρ Aqr (rho-Aquarii) which I have marked and which is slightly closer to the Sun than Mercury will get.

What you won't see on SOHO, though, is Mercury performing its handbrake turn around Ancha as it returns to direct motion. Both Mercury and Ancha will have exited stage right in the SOHO view several days before that happens. SOHO provides a relatively narrow view in just one frame of reference that is co-orbiting with the Earth. In Stellarium you can have a fixed Sun, fixed stars, fixed Mercury ... fixed anything you like. Not bad for evil RA/Dec software that continues to perpetrate a 17th century crime.

oriel36

My preference is just to leave the whole issue as it stands as it moves into the public domain so people can add or adjust to many different issues that emerge.

I can say there is satisfaction in predicting how Mercury rapidly diminishes in luminosity as it passes between the stationary Sun and slower moving Earth but then again, it is reminding people what they should already know from lessons learned from images of Mercury overtaking the Earth with the central Sun as a backdrop hence the satisfaction is dynamic and structural rather than timekeeping -

https://sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/


The present time lapse expands the perspective so perhaps more important and productive than the transit where the central Sun is seen whereas many times it is not, at least until 2032.


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


This spectacle happens frequently so should become a basis for more immediate creativity or even as an expanded precursor to a transit in an elegant loop of the faster planets around the Sun. No offence to the other contributor but planetary 'handbrake turns' are a misreading and maybe disrespect for the clear explanation which incorporates more than a few new perspectives .

oriel36

From a personal point of view, it is a quiet visual experience to see Mercury exit the short corridor on February 29th and the smooth transition to March 1st where the calendar resets itself close to the orbital position of the Earth in space where it began on March 1st 2016.

https://sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/


There is, of course, quite a lot of information involved where timekeeping and the motions of our planet along with Mercury coincide tomorrow so long as observers begin with a new and refreshing perspective.

Zubeneschamali

oriel36 wrote: »

From a personal point of view, it is a quiet visual experience to see Mercury exit the short corridor on February 29th and the smooth transition to March 1st where the calendar resets itself close to the orbital position of the Earth in space where it began on March

You've probably never even seen Mercury with your actual eyes, just cartoons on YouTube.

Quantum Erasure