https://sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/
It is lovely to note that as Venus and Mercury pass behind the Sun on the opposite side of the solar system presently, they appear roughly the same luminosity. As Mercury is closer to the Sun on the far side of our parent star, it is also closer to Earth
while Venus is further out from the Sun.
When Venus and Mercury pass in front of the Sun, Venus is very bright despite showing most of its dark hemisphere to us while Mercury is barely discernible against the motion of the background stars from left to right although not quite.
http://www.masil-astro-imaging.com/SWI/UV%20montage%20flat.jpg
"But the telescope plainly shows us its horns to be as bounded and distinct as those of the moon, and they are seen to belong to a very large circle, in a ratio almost forty times as great as the same disc when it is beyond the sun, toward the end of its
morning appearances.
Sagr; Oh Nicholas Copernicus, what a pleasure it would have been for you to see this part of your system confirmed by so clear an experiment!
Salv; Yes, but how much less would his sublime intellect be celebrated among the learned!. For as I said before, we may see that with reason as his guide he resolutely continued to affirm what sensible experience seemed to contradict. I cannot get over
my amazement that he was constantly willing to persist in saying that Venus might go around the sun and be more than six times as far from us at one time than at other times as at another, and still look always equal, when it should have appeared forty
times larger." Galileo
This type of solar system research has largely vanished from humanity as people are distracted by other things. I am sorry that I didn't find my audience, but not to worry, it is too good to miss even when the satellite has a shelf life before it fails.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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