A Little Fun With Your New Astrological Sign

Now I know you are a little distraught over the fact you are not what you think you are when it comes to astrological signs so I have decided to set up a one time therapy session dealing with this oh so important revelation to the astrological believing public. When I got wind of this upheaval in the whole  astrological community I was shocked because all you really had to do was look at a star map and then with a few calculations figure out... Hey the Sun is not where it should be. He is visiting next door in some other signs house. Psst(whispering)  astronomers have known this for a looong time. We should have said something many hundreds of years ago and we didn't and for that the scientific community surely apologizes. What the heck happened? I was born  Wednesday on June the 8th so that would make me a Gemini well up until a few weeks ago that is. 

There were a couple of problems  for ancient astrologers  when they set up this zodiacal system. There were 13 constellations in the ecliptic...  always was.  Astrologers may have thought 12 sounded way more cooler than 13  so they decided one of these signs has got to go. I guess they thought long and hard about it  and finally tossed Ophiuchus out. So why him ? Here is my guess. Would you want your daughter to be called a snake handler? or boy for that matter? Way too much teasing going on... They knew kids were ruthless!  So that is why Ophi got the pink slip. They had their 12 houses (kind of) and all was happy except... They did not count on precession. The Sun and Earth do a dance constantly of wobbling in rotation and in orbit. Gravity is a constant relentless action between objects. the two main precession problems are axial and ecliptic precession

Axial precession is the movement of the rotational axis of an astronomical body, whereby the axis slowly traces out a cone. In the case of the Earth, this type of precession is also known as the precession of the equinoxes or precession of the equator. The Earth goes through one such complete precessional cycle in a period of approximately 26,000 years, during which the positions of stars as measured in the equatorial coordinate system will slowly change; the change is actually due to the change of the coordinates. Over this cycle the Earth's north axial pole moves from where it is now, within 1° of Polaris, in a circle around the ecliptic pole, with an angular radius of about 23.5 degrees (or approximately 23 degrees 27 arc-minutes). The shift is 1 degree in 72 years, where the angle is taken from the observer, not from the center of the circle.

Aristarchus of Samos (c. 280 BC) is the earliest known astronomer to recognize and assess the precession of the equinoxes at almost 1º per century (which is not far from the actual value for antiquity, 1.38º).The Precession (axial rotation) was later explained by Newtonian physics . Being an oblate spheroid, the Earth has a nonspherical shape, bulging outward at the equator. The gravitational tidal forces of the Moon Sun apply torque as they attempt to pull the equatorial bulge into the plane of the ecliptic. The portion of the precession due to the combined action of the Sun and the Moon is called lunisolar precession.  Astronomers knew way back then  you could not put an immovable system into a constantly moving system and not have  some problems. I guess the did not get the memo to fix their problem 2200 years ago or so another precession is ecliptical

The inclination of Earth's orbit drifts up and down. Relative to its present orbit this drift has a period of about 70,000 years. Relative to the invariable plane it has a 100,000 year period. The invariable plane represents the angular momentum of the solar system, and is approximately the orbital plane of Jupiter. To the observer the Sun now is moving through  some astrological houses for just two weeks and some for as long as three months! This concrete unmoving system is  having a tough time of it in the modern world.

So what will be the outcome? well I believe there will be two camps, one of which my darling daughter Meghan is camped out in and then the one I am finding a home in . My dear sweet Daughter was born in early September and that makes her a Virgo in her mind ... So much so that she decided to have a tattoo of Virgo stamped near her bikini line. When I told her she was not a Virgo  but a Leo she leaps at me like a lion Hmmm. Meg roared she does not care what house the sun is in she is a Virgo! I even offered to have a red X tattooed through her Virgo tattoo. She just growled at me.... Hmmm.

As for me  I started to reflect upon this transition. I was a Gemini and now I am a Taurus and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Oh my stars I am  and have always been a Taurus . I remembered when my dad would ask me where I had been. I would tell him  and he would say that sounded like a load of Bull. or even later in life when I was giving a presentation of why we need to expand our  efforts to look for the Ether I was met by  a score of people  chanting ...Bull! OR right about now when you read this and cry Bull Hockey! Yes I am feeling quite comfortable in my new Bull digs. I think my sweet wife has known for awhile that I was  full of Bull .

Until next time,

Keep looking up!

SteveT