What are the movements of the moon, the sun and the planets how we perceive them from Earth? And why are those movements different from the movements of the stars that we observe?

Answer

That is a sometimes somewhat confusing history, because we ourselves look from an earth that:

1) rotates around its own axis
2) revolves around the sun

And what are we looking at? Unpleasant :

1) the moon, which revolves around the earth
2) the sun, at the center of the solar system
3) the other planets that also revolve around the sun, but at a different distance and with a different period.
4) the stars that are so far away that we can regard them here as stationary in the universe, just like the sun for that matter.

First the sun : we see it revolving around us every 24 hours as a result of the earth’s rotation.

The stars : we see them revolving around us every 23 hours for 56 minutes. That is the time it takes the Earth to return to the exact same star.
Try it out yourself: You look at someone or something 10 meters away from you (= the sun), and at the distant background behind that person (= the stars). Now you turn once around your own axis in an anticlockwise direction, but in the meantime you also take a step to the right. You will see that you are again facing the same background, but to aim at the person you have to turn a little further. Likewise, the earth has to rotate for another 4 minutes after that 23h56m to be directed to the sun again.

The Moon: That’s easy. It revolves around the Earth: in 27.321585 days, it will be back in the same position against the star background and in 29,530 589 days opposite the sun.

Finally the planets:
here we have to distinguish between :
1) the inner planets (= Mercury and Venus), whose orbits are closer to the Sun than Earth’s. As a result, they move between us and the sun, and cannot move further than a certain angle from the sun from our point of view. When they stand between us and the sun we speak of inferior conjunction, the sun stands between us and the planet, of superior conjunction. View on
http://www.watchthestars.co.uk/images/planets/phases_of_venus.jpg
for a figure on this.

2) the outer planets (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). They can move behind us. If we stand between the sun and such a planet, we say that the planet is in opposition. Opposite the stars, a planet moves roughly from right to left, but during the weeks/months before and after the opposition, it moves briefly from left to right, while the earth moves between the sun and planet. That’s called an opposition loop. Look at: http:// Hemel.waarnemen.com/special/mars_071224.html
for figures about this

You see, the movement depends on the object you are looking at. And in practice it all becomes a lot more difficult because:
1) the planetary orbits and the orbit of the moon are not circles but faint ellipses
2) the planets and moon do not move in one plane, but each in its own plane, although the angles between those intersecting planes are not so great.
3) the rotational axis of the earth is not perpendicular to its orbital plane, but deviates by 23° (so we know seasons on earth by the way)