And I even went through all the 88 constellations here, and I couldn't find anything remotely Irish. A furnace? A compass? A fisher's net? A little horse? Duh :-k

Last ditch: Crux australis - because a National symbol of Ireland is the Celtic Cross.

So? :-?

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:-k :-k :-k: Mean distance of V from Sun 108 Mkm
Mean dist. E from Sun 149 Mkm
It's from NASA, so it must be true.
So min. dist. V-E 41 Mkm
Max. 258 Mkm
(Assuming we can measure the disk when Venus is almost right behind or in front of the Sun; transits and /or radar will do that.)

For apparent diameter : Playing with the diameter of Venus (app. 12000 km), the two distances and tangens, I get a 6,3-fold difference between the two angles - a difference of 84%.

Since the apparent area of the planetary disk is proportional to the inverse square of that difference in angles, I guess the max. percent change in surface of the apparent disk is 97.5 % ((1-1/6.3^2 ) *100).

I am a bad mathematician (without the capital B). If my solution is wrong, would you care to lay out the correct computation for me?

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Yes. [I got 6.17x]

It should vary as the square. Think in terms of area.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

Really ? - Isn't it distance twice as large, app., area four times smaller (=inverse square)?

But .... Oooookay. We still have these two:
Let's leave it at that for the moment - Good night everybody!

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According to Sky Map, over the next 60 years, the Earth will be only .2645 AU from Venus on Dec. 27, 2061, and will be 1.7356 AU from Venus on June 9, 2008. 1.7356/.2645 is 6.562, squared it's 43.06. So, that's a 4206% increase one way, 97.7% decrease the other.

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Wow. You dug deeper than could have hoped. Doesn't this surprise you. It did me. I'll add it to the Bullet thread. [I had come up with about 38x in angular area increase using mean orbital values.]

I have to run. Thanks.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

I'm going to ask a question.

With all that change in area, and its shifting phases (ignoring the times when it is very close (a solar diameter) to the Sun), how many magnitudes does the apparent brightness of Venus vary?

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Hmmm....I'll take a punt and say 0.6 magnitudes (-4.5 to -3.9)

with regards

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Antlia

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Ack! I automatically discounted all those southern constellations...but then, when you think about it any ancient constellation couldn't possibly be Irish. #-o

So does that mean you get to ask another question? :-?

with regards

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I think it gets up to -4.7 this coming December

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US Vela nuclear test detection satellites

The irony? I dunno. They were military satellites...?

:-k

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That'll get the woo-meters railing in time for Christmas (and, according to my Pigs calender, there's two new moons in December too!)

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Yeah, but it'll be magnitude -4.7 squished into a couple of square arc seconds. :P

with regards

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why? Venus will be about 45 arcsec wide, phase 0.2

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It was an exaggeration. :P

with regards

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=D> =D> =D>
Yes, and yes - I think it is indeed ironic that these stallites, originally installed to watch over the possible infringement of the ban on atmospheric nuclear tests detected the gamma ray bursts they were supposed to detect, but from quite a different direction.

Hint: He was probably supposed to say "It's one small step for man..." or something like that, but didn't
Maybe ask for help from the folks over at the SciFi citations thread?

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