Re: Semi-minor Axis

Newtonian yes, geocentric no. If you are thinking of my "equivalents for
other primary bodies" I mean, for example, major planets relative to their
own moons, not to each other or the Sun!

Since you are now accusing me, I will use the opportunity to make some
points about your comments in general.
(1) You cite references to the phases of Venus as being geocentric. In fact
the ability to see them was evidence against a heliocentric model, as they
showed that Earth and Venus were sometimes the same side of the Sun and
sometimes opposite sides.
(2) One of your quotations of Newton says that from Earth the planets APPEAR
sometimes direct, sometimes stationary, sometimes retrograde. In other words
he was acknowledging that that was an illusion caused by Earth's own
movement relative to the Sun.
(3) Yes, references to things being in constellations are astrological, but
they are being used as a METAPHOR. I have myself been criticised for
pedantry about such matters. It is easier for readers to picture a location
relative to an arbitrary alignment of unrelated stars than to a set of
numerical coordinates.

"oriel36" <geraldkelleher@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1136027329.438300.226580@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To Charles
>
> Your thinking is strictly Newtonian quasi-geocentric, an astronomical
> conception that owes more to astrology than Copernican heliocentricity
> or its antecedent Ptolemaic geocentricity.If you are in any doubt or
> are completely unfamiliar with Newton's mangling of Copernican
> heliocentricity and its later Keplerian refinement then that is O.K.
> but I assure you the Newton conception is horrific in comparison to
> Ptolemaic astronomy never mind Copernican.
>
> " PHENOMENON IV.
> That the fixed stars being at rest, the periodic times of the five
> primary planets, and (whether of the sun about the earth, or) of the
> earth about the sun, are in the sesquiplicate proportion of their mean
> distances from the sun."
>
> http://members.tripod.com/~gravitee/phaenomena.htm
>
> Even the Ptolemaics had severed the motions of the planets from the
> stellar background to generate their idea of epicycles and although
> they attributed the position of the Sun between Venus and Mars,where
> the hell are you going to justify the position of the Sun in Newton's
> really dumb "(whether of the sun about the earth, or) of the earth
> about the sun,"
>
> Not only has the greatest Western heliocentric achievement and its
> appreciation been destroyed but even the antecedent nobility of the
> planetary motion plotting of Ptolemaic astronomers joins the
> destruction.
>
> The planetary motions in retrograde refer to the plotting with the
> stellar background ,what the Ptolemaics seen as epicycles,the
> Copernican heliocentrists rightly identified as a faster Earth ,moving
> in an inner orbital circuit overtaking the slower moving outer planets
> -
>
> http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0112/JuSa2000_tezel.gif
>
> No jumping to the Sun to infer heliocentricity and no retrogrades
> involved *,just the altering of a Ptolemaic stationary Earth to an
> annual orbital motion.
>
> * "For to the earth they appear sometimes direct, sometimes stationary,
> nay, and sometimes retrograde. But from the sun they are always seen
> direct.."
>
> http://members.tripod.com/~gravitee/phaenomena.htm
>
> Newton and his disciples did not just destroy heliocentric
> astronomy,they ruined a heritage that stretches back millennia.
>


.

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