The genius of Copernicus was to realize that this plot
becomes this plot
under a clever change of coordinates.
The first plot is the apparent motion of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn as viewed from Earth over the course of 30 years. Of course Copernicus knew of Mercury and Venus as well, but I’ve omitted them to make the plot simpler. The second plot is the view of Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn from the sun.
If Copernicus had lived on Mars, what view of the solar system would he have started with? Here’s what 30 (Earth) years of the apparent motion of Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn would look like from Mars.
These plots were produced by modifying the Python script given in the previous post.
Beautiful, but I suspect the figures would be clearer if the colors of the orbits were held constant between plots.