Phases of Moon and Venus

Here i am trying to explain basic astronomy to everybody. From the little i know.

First let me make sure, in the era of NASA that everybody knows what Sun, Earth, Venus and Moon are. Because everything i found is not near good enough for all to understand so i can't just link to something.

Sun is a true star, not like Venus which is called morning or evening star (because it appears as a star) but is actually an illuminated planet, at a distance much closer than real stars.

It is made of hydrogen and helium and undergoes a continuous fusion reaction which slowly turns hydrogen into helium (yes, transmutation), over billions of years. It is very hot inside, cooler at the surface and it radiates light and other forms of radiations which are luckily caught by Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere before they can reach us.

It is very large when compared to Earth or Moon but it appears roughly at the same diameter with Moon because of the distance of course. For comparison, it takes light about 8 minutes to reach us from Sun and about one second from Moon. 2 to 14 minutes from Venus because it evolves, like Earth, around the Sun.

Yes, if  you would say hello on a radio, a guy on Moon will  hear it after one second and on Venus after between 2 and 14 minutes, depending on the position of the two planets on their orbits around Sun at that time.

While Sun (and giant planets like Jupiter) is made of gas, the 4 inner planets (with orbits around Sun closer than Mars) are solid balls of rock.

We could say Moon is in our backyard, being the closest planet to Earth and the only one to orbit around it. At 1/6 the mass of Earth, i think we should call it a companion planet rather than a (natural) satellite because they rather wobble against each other, Earth being attracted by the Moon as well (a little).

Here is an intuitive model of the sizes of the planets. if Sun was am orange, Earth would be a grain of mustard and Moon a grain of poppy. Yes i was very shocked when i first heard about this model, in grade school and ever since when i look at the sky and see one of them other planets i try to adjust my perception with it.

And now lets get down to what's really wrong what is really important at least for Luciferian religions, all based on first Innana which in time turned to Ishtar and then into Venus with Lucifer being just another name for it

Here is a video showing the phases of the Moon. The phases of the Moon is what we see of it. The area of the planet illuminated by Sun in different days of a lunar cycle (of 29.5 days).

In the video Sun does not appear at all, being at such enormous distance (on the left) when compared to distance between Earth and Moon. The distance between Earth and Moon is shown much smaller, or the Moon appears much closer to Earth so it can fit in the video while keeping the scale only for Earth and Moon of reasonable sizes to see the illumination.

Here is a more realistic (nominal) representation of the sizes of the two planets and distance between them.

While Earth orbits around the Sun too, the video simplifies that (or it uses a reference system intrinsic to Earth). The model is good enough only to explain illumination of Moon at different times of the cycle and its apparent "phases" which basically are the difference in illuminated size from one night to another.

All of the above is straight forward. But let's now see a video that shows phases of Venus. In this video Sun is also shown at a much closer distance to the two planets compared to diameters.

Everything is exaggerated one way or another, just to make them all fit in the frame. But the way we see Venus (like through binoculars or a small telescope) is real. It takes years for a full cycle. But what's important is the greater cycle or when Earth and Venus get in the same position after 8 years. Or the number of "rays" in the star of Ishtar.

Moon rotating around Earth is not shown at all, to simplify the model.

 

It appears Sumerians, way before Romans had a way of counting the years without using the Moon, all based on Venus phases, thus having a precise way to calculate year, most importantly, time for sowing. Today in the era of GPS we are all taking the calculation of time and date for granted, but back then it was a big deal.

And they of course were grateful to the star for that and had temples and priests that could watch Ishtar and its phases. And yes, a small number of people with good sight can see the phases, especially the crescents, with the naked eye.

While other people in Far East for example used (and still use) a Moon calendar, which is awkward at least to say, because Moon cycle is not even an even number of days, and there are more than 12x29.5 days in a year, constantly needing correction, romans started to use what we currently use or an Earth calendar, based on an Earth cycle around the Sun, the "months" having slightly different number of days, greater than 29, for constant corrections, to make it both for the tradition of a Moon calendar and still have 12 months in a full real year.

But it does not have anything to do with the Moon anymore. Wondering if didn't have to do with Romans adopting Venus as well.

Actually i think more people then realize can see Venus phases. Most never looked and many don't even know what to look for. But if you look at the evening sky right after Sunset you can see the brightest object there and some would have, like me, a feeling that something is not right, because what you see is not round but has corners (yes i need glasses, 1.25 for the computer monitor but can still see well in the distance).

I once even took a picture of it with my Kodak held still on the dashboard with optical zoom at max and very long exposure time (by trials) and if  you zoom into that you can see the phase..,

Tonight in Portland Venu is setting at around 9 PM, depending on the terrain. About ten  more minutes. 

Venus is now at the right of the Sun as seen from Earth and is getting close to a crescent phase, pretty much like when i took that picture linked above. The bright side of course indicates the direction of Sun illumination.

...as for the part of symbolism of Ishtar star and how it all evolved into a full blown religion with the many aspects of the Goddess, will continue at a later time...