Why don't we see the 1st and the 2nd planets, but we can see the Sun, and we are the 3rd planet?

Well, ..., both the 1st planet Mercury and the 2nd Planet Venus are easily spotted (depending on orbital period) in the early evening or morning skies. On May 26th and 27th 2013 there was a triple conjunction of Mercury Venus and Jupiter (The 5th planet) the was plainly visible in the night sky. Literally millions of people step outside to view the celestial event.

See the link below

But we DO see the 1st and 2nd planets most of the time. Look in the west just after sunset and you'll see Venus, the 2nd planet. In a few weeks Mercury, the 1st planet, will be visible just before sunrise.

We do see Mercury and Venus, even before there were telescopes, people saw Mercury and Venus. You obviously have no idea about scale, perspectives or shadows. What a sad statement about our education system...

Venus and Mercury are visible every night (either just after sunset or just before sunrise), except when they are behind the Sun or too close to it they are lost in its glare. You should look at the sky sometime, it's pretty neat.

Actually we can see them, that's how primitive goat herders knew they were there. But they're usually really close to the sun in the sky, and hard to see.

Venus is easy if you know where to look. Most of the time it looks like a bright star when it starts to get dark.

You can see Mercury and Venus rather easily (Mercury is a little trickier to see, but it is possible)

Venus was called the Morning Star and the Evening Star in antiquity because the ancients thought it was 2 separate stars. It follows the Sun very closely and the reason why is because of simple geometry.

Draw 3 concentric circles. The outermost circle will have a radius of 150 units (each unit will represent 1 million km). The circle just inside of it will have a radius of 108. The next circle will have a radius of 58.

The outermost circle represents the orbit of the earth. The next circle represents the orbit of Venus. The innermost circle represents the orbit of Mercury. The sun will be at the center.

Now, draw 2 diameters that are perpendicular to each other.

Pick the point where one of the diameters intersects the orbit of the earth. Now, draw a line from that point to the point where the orbit of venus intersects the perpendicular diameter. Do this again from the earth to Mercury's orbit.

You now have 2 right triangles. One triangle has leg lengths of 150 and 108. Find the angle from the perspective of the earth

tan(t) = 108 / 150
t = arctan(108 / 150)
t = 35.753887254436748778180892690996

tan(t) = 58 / 150
t = arctan(58 / 150)
t = 21.139824808657660791378199703963


So, from the perspective of an observer on Earth, Venus never strays more than 36 degrees from the sun (that is, in the sky, if you measured out 36 degrees from the sun, you will find Venus somewhere in there, unless it's behind the sun) and Mercury will not stray more than 21.14 degrees (roughly, since Mercury has such an eccentric orbit).

This should explain why they can be so difficult to see. The sun is very bright, so it obscures objects like planets and stars during the day. Venus has a very reflective atmosphere which makes it easier to observe before sunrise or just after sunset (it reflects a lot of the sunlight that hits it, and during those times the sun is hidden behind the horizon so its glare doesn't drown out Venus).

Mercury is a little more difficult to see because:
1) It's the smallest planet
2) It's much closer to the sun, so the window to observe it is shorter
3) It has no atmosphere to speak of, so it doesn't really reflect sunlight as well as Venus

But it still is visible just before sunrise or just after sunset.

We can and do see Venus and Mercury. They are two of the brightest objects in the sky. Venus is THE brightest after the Sun and the Moon.

We can.

???

we do. look to the west at dusk. the very bright object is venus.

We DO occasionally see the second planet, Venus, with the naked eye,
as a morning or evening star.
Mercury, the first planet, is so close to the Sun that it gets lost in the glare.

Well the sun is the biggest heavenly body in our solar system. Plus it is also the brightest. Therefore, the two planets arent visible with the naked eye because of their size , and they aren't bright like our sun.

We can see the 1st and 2nd planets (Mercury and Venus).
The ancient astronomers knew about them and observed them.

The problem is people don't know where to look and can't be bothered to find out.

Im am not sure about the "we" part of this, but Mercury and Venus are quite visible, not all the time, sometimes they are too close to the Sun along our line of sight. Venus is quite obvious in the evening sky these days, just North of West after sunset.

Yo Yo says it all ......... Trolll.........I called it..

Sun is big