Orbital comparisons

The above poster kept spouting their pseudoscience hypotheses on the Astronomy and Space forum, and was repeatedly warned about the same, so it looks as though they are now trying to gain traction on this section instead.

They have an uwavering belief that the standard orbital mechanics as currently understood and well proven is wrong, and it'e frustrating continually showing the above poster the error of their hypotheses.

Please, do not engage with this poster, they are proven to be *completely* unable to take part in sane discussions on the subject matter.

Mutual closest points and opposition are more or less the same thing although due to the elliptical nature of most planetary orbits, they can differ by a matter of hours or (in the case of Earth and Mars) up to 2-3 days.

The word conjunction can be confusing since it is used for several different orbital phenomena.

In technical terms, the conjunction of an outer planet occurs when it goes behind the Sun from our vantage point, and that is an approximation since orbital inclinations can mean that the said planet is not actually behind the Sun at any point. Opposition of an outer planet is the moment when we pass through the line connecting it to the Sun, or at least we are at right angles above or below said line.

The conjunction of two planets however refers to an apparent close approach in the sky, of course we all understand that this is perspective and there is no actual close approach. In colloquial terms, a planetary conjunction is an event played out over several weeks or months and the term is not meant to indicate just one moment in time, although the technical reference is the closest separation the planets appear to have in the sky.

For the two inner planets, it is the earth at opposition to them when we have "inferior conjunction", the event where the inner planet overtakes us heading past the Sun from our perspective. Their orbital inclinations are quite significant and only rarely do they actually pass in front of the solar disk. Venus just had two of those events in June of 2004 and 2012. Mercury has them if inferior conjunction is around early May or November. Otherwise inferior conjunction also has a component of the inner planet going above or below the solar disk (all out of sight in the glare of the Sun, all illumination of the inner planets then being on their sunward side). Superior conjunction is when either of the inner planets passes behind the Sun (same caveats about some vertical displacement being likely).

The terms opposition and conjunction have been in use in astronomy for several centuries now. They are easy to understand once you know their definitions, and don't need modernizing, in my opinion, but if you feel they do, please take it up with astronomers, I am not in charge of anything in either that science or the atmospheric sciences for that matter, just collateral damage in both cases.

Assumptions or implications of what I don't know or don't understand are becoming tiresome and cannot be tested by anyone reading your posts, nor does anyone really care one way or the other. But if you're saying I didn't know opposition was closest approach, then you would be quite mistaken. I am also familiar with orbital dynamics including the different inclinations of the planets and major asteroids.

Did you know that the earth's Moon follows the ecliptic plane and does not orbit in the equatorial plane as do the moons of the outer planets? This is one reason why astronomy developed that concept you keep slagging, right ascension (and declination) as a parallel observational framework for celestial latitude and longitude which are based on the ecliptic plane. For example, at the summer solstice, the Sun is at celestial latitude zero but declination 23.4 degrees.

Right ascension is a system that begins at the vernal equinox position (where the Sun crosses the equator north) and has 24 hours as opposed to the 360 degrees of celestial longitude (which also starts at that same point). So a right ascension of 6 hours, roughly the boundary of Orion and Gemini, runs through the summer solstice position, while the celestial longitude of that would be around 90 degrees.

It's simply two different systems projected onto the sky from two different equators, and astronomers (as far as I know) use them both and understand the differences. They are not (as you imply) confused about or ignorant of any of the details of earth's orbital dynamics, in fact, they (over many centuries) discovered them. You only know about them because of that discovery.

So go off now and argue your obscure points with them, please, I don't think the weather forum is really the place for your anti-Newton crusade, even if you're right, and I think you're just mistaken about what other people know, as I said before, it's not a problem of what you know or don't know, but what you think others know or don't know.

Tabnabs wrote: »

This was not the thread I thought it would be...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE_z1--kPWI

i'll take a Satan (Live) please

To be fair this is in the wrong forum, the only reason to add here is for discussion on viewing conditions for astronomy. Which this post is clearly not about.

Much is a repeat of what is already in the astronomy forum as a poster has pointed out.

No, not a bot, just a user that appear to be misguided and trying to be evangelical about something that's just plain wrong.

It's also possible that they've re-registered over the past decade to evade moderation, but I can't speak to that, that's based on other conversations on the other previously-frequented forums they've been continually posting on in the past.

Either way, best left either on ignore, or just plain ignored. Never any point in actually engaging, as they've proven to be either wilfully unwilling (or genuinely unable) to show they can learn and change a viewpoint - even in the face of overwhelming correct evidence.