Astronomical Mercury and Venus transits

[TheScales_BothWays]

Originally posted by myself on Sun Apr 24, 2016 11:21 pm
All times of posting are in MYT/UTC+8

On the upcoming 9th of May, an astronomical transit will occur where Mercury will move across the face of the Sun, sort of like a solar eclipse but with Mercury instead of the Moon. Venus also (astronomically) transits the Sun too, lastly during 5th-6th June, 2012.
Both Mercury and Venus transits tend to occur at a short interval followed by a longer interval, with Venus's intervals longer than Mercury's because of Venus's larger orbit.
For example, see Venus's past and future transit dates:

9 Dec 1874
6 Dec 1882
8 June 2004
5-6 June 2012 (Arghh how I regret missing it! It was visible in Malaysia on that day!)
10-11 Dec 2117 (Very unlikely for anyone of us here to view this event, even me haha )
8 Dec 2125

If I'm correct the chart of this event would be when both Mercury and Sun and on the same degree, which in Solar Fire it shows as 24°16' Aries. 11.12 pm in Malaysia, so it's not visible here.
The next astronomical Mercury transit is at 11 Nov 2019, with Mer-Sun on 23°55' Libra, followed by a longer interval till 13 Nov 2032.
Since astronomical transits of Mercury can only happen in May or November (with May transits being about half as frequent as November transits), they happen when Mer-Sun is in Aries or Libra.
For Venus transits they only occur in June or November, so Sun-Venus would be in Taurus or Scorpio.

Would you guys think this as astrologically important, like eclipses? There might be too few examples to prove its significance, but it should have something into it.
For example, this upcoming Mercury transit at May will partile oppose my Mercury (24°44' Libra) and partile square my Moon (25°08' Capricorn). The same goes to Arena's but with different hard aspects I think, because I remember her saying that our Moon-Mercury squares form a partile grand square.
In a normal solar/lunar eclipse if it aspects a natal planet one would say that its effects last till the next eclipse (6 months), but I'm not sure I don't think that the effects of a Mercury transit will last a few years, i.e. the next Mercury transit.
For me and Arena, this means till the next Mercury transit at 11 Nov 2019.
If you include astronomical Venus transits, it would be crazy because even the short interval ones last (if one follows the same rules like in solar/lunar eclipses) about 8 years, and the long term ones last more than a hundred!

What do you fellow Solunars users think of astronomical Mercury and Venus transits?
Are they at least strong enough to produce significant effects that last about a day or two?

[TheScales_BothWays]

Jim Eshelman on Mon Apr 25, 2016 12:52 am

I don't think these are anything close to eclipses in power or importance, but they are unusually strong Sun-Mercury and Sun-Venus conjunctions.

Basically, these are conjunctions with Mercury and Venus having very nearly 0°00' celestial latitude. The angular diameter of Sun (its apparent diameter in the sky from our perspective) is about half a degree, its center is always exactly on the ecliptic, so the farthest a body can be in latitude from Sun and still have its center across the face of Sun is about 0°15'. Mercury has an angular diameter on average of 0°00'13" at most, and Venus 0°01'03" at most, so the whole disk of either of these would be across the face of Sun when passing in near-side conjunction with latitude of no more than 0°14' or so.

Equally important - astrologically, it's exactly the same thing, though astronomically it's the opposite - are low-latitude far-side conjunctions, where Mercury or Venus gets lost behind the disk of Sun, rather than passing visibly across Sun's surface. These are called occultations, but they're nothing more than extremely tight conjunctions.

When latitude of two conjoining bodies is essentially identical, the most important astrological effect is that their conjunction is exact simultaneously in several reference systems. Not only is the conjunction exact in longitude but (for example) it's exact at nearly the same time in Right Ascension. This means it's also going to be exact in any framework that is easily convertible from RA, such as Prime Vertical longitude (at all locations on Earth at the same time). In contrast, most conjunctions have more separation in time between when the longitude and RA (ecliptical and equatorial) conjunctions occur.

[TheScales_BothWays]

TheScales_BothWays on Mon Apr 25, 2016 1:20 am

Thank you so much Jim for your enlightening post. I just got confused for a while.

Equally important - astrologically, it's exactly the same thing, though astronomically it's the opposite - are low-latitude far-side conjunctions, where Mercury or Venus gets lost behind the disk of Sun, rather than passing visibly across Sun's surface. These are called occultations, but they're nothing more than extremely tight conjunctions.

Lol I totally forgot about occultations.

When latitude of two conjoining bodies is essentially identical, the most important astrological effect is that their conjunction is exact simultaneously in several reference systems. Not only is the conjunction exact in longitude but (for example) it's exact at nearly the same time in Right Ascension. This means it's also going to be exact in any framework that is easily convertible from RA, such as Prime Vertical longitude (at all locations on Earth at the same time). In contrast, most conjunctions have more separation in time between when the longitude and RA (ecliptical and equatorial) conjunctions occur.

Hmm yes. From this I can see why you said that these are "unusually" strong Sun-Mercury & Sun-Venus conjunctions.

Well thank you again for making things clear.