whats my zodiac sign

whats my zodiac sign listings

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Zodiac denotes an annual cycle of twelve stations or "signs" along the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the heavens, dividing the ecliptic into twelve equal zones of celestial longitude. As such, the zodiac is a celestial coordinate system, more precisely an ecliptic coordinate system, taking the ecliptic as the origin of latitude, and the position of the sun at vernal equinox as the origin of longitude.

It is known to have been in use by the Roman era, based on concepts inherited by Hellenistic astronomy from Babylonian astronomy of the Chaldean period (mid 1st millennium BC), which in turn derived from an earlier system of lists of stars along the ecliptic. The construction of the zodiac is described in Ptolemy's Almagest (2nd century AD).

The term zodiac may also refer to the region of the celestial sphere encompassing the paths of the Moon and the naked eye planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), corresponding to the band of about eight arc degrees above and below the ecliptic. The zodiac of a given planet is the band which contains the path of that particular body, e.g. the "zodiac of the Moon" is the band of five degrees above and below the ecliptic. By extension, the "zodiac of the comets" may refer to the band encompassing most short-period comets

The term zodiac derives from Latin zōdiacus, in turn from the Greek ζωδιακός κύκλος (zōdiakos kuklos), meaning "circle of animals", derived from ζώδιον (zōdion), the diminutive of ζῶον (zōon) "animal". The name is motivated by the fact that many of the signs of the classical Greek zodiac are represented as animals (six out of twelve, plus two mythological hybrids).

Although the zodiac remains the basis of the ecliptic coordinate system in use in astronomy besides the equatorial one, the term and the names of the twelve signs are today mostly associated with horoscopic astrology.

Precession of the equinoxes

Further information: Precession of the equinoxes, Epoch (astronomy), Sidereal astrology, Tropical astrology, Astrological age, and Ayanamsa

The zodiac system was developed in Babylonia, some 2,500 years ago, during the "Age of Aries". At the time, the precession of the equinoxes was unknown, and the system made no allowance for it. Contemporary use of the coordinate system is presented with the choice of either interpreting the system as sidereal, with the signs fixed to the stellar background, or as tropical, with the signs fixed to the point of vernal equinox.

Western astrology takes the tropical approach, while Hindu astrology takes the sidereal one. This results in the originally unified zodiacal coordinate system drifting apart gradually, with an angular velocity of about 1.4 degrees per century.

For the tropical zodiac used in Western astronomy and astrology, this means that the tropical sign of Aries currently lies somewhere within the constellation Pisces ("Age of Pisces"). The choice of origin for the sidereal coordinate system is known as the ayanamsa, a Sanskrit word.

It is not entirely clear how the Hellenistic astronomers responded to this phenomenon of precession once it had been discovered by Hipparchus around 130 BC. Today, some read Ptolemy as dropping the concept of a fixed celestial sphere and adopting what is referred to as a tropical coordinate system instead: in other words, one fixed to the Earth's seasonal cycle rather than the distant stars.

Some modern Western astrologers, such as Cyril Fagan, have advocated abandoning the tropical system in favour of a sidereal one.

In modern astronomy

Further information: Epoch (astronomy)

The zodiac is a spherical celestial coordinate system. It designates the ecliptic as its fundamental plane and the position of the Sun at Vernal equinox as its prime meridian.

In astronomy, the zodiacal constellations are a convenient way of marking the ecliptic (the Sun's path across the sky) and the path of the moon and planets along the ecliptic. Modern astronomy still uses tropical coordinates for predicting the positions the Sun, Moon, and planets, except longitude in the ecliptic coordinate system is numbered from 0° to 360°, not 0° to 30° within each sign. Longitude within individual signs was still being used as late as 1740 by Jacques Cassini in his Tables astronomiques.

Unlike the zodiac signs in astrology, which are all thirty degrees in length, the astronomical constellations vary widely in size. The boundaries of all the constellations in the sky were set by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1930. This was essentially a mapping exercise to make the work of astronomers more efficient, and the boundaries of the constellations are not therefore in any meaningful sense an 'equivalent' to the zodiac signs. Along with the twelve original constellations, the boundaries of a thirteenth constellation, Ophiuchus (the serpent bearer), were set by astronomers within the bounds of the zodiac.

Mnemonics for the zodiac

A traditional mnemonic:

A less poetic, but succinct and perhaps more memorable, mnemonic is the following:

(Ram-Ble = Ram, Bull; Twins = Twins; Crab = Crab; Li-Ver(ish) = Lion, Virgin; Scaly = Scale; Scorpion = Scorpio; Are = Archer; Good = Goat; Water = Water Bearer; Fish = Fish)

For Filipinos, the following mnemonics in the Englog pidgin would greatly help:

"According to Gabby Concepcion, laging very loving si Sharon Cuneta after performing."

According = Aries To = Taurus Gabby = Gemini Concepcion = Cancer Laging = Leo Very = Virgo Loving = Libra Si = Scorpio Sharon = Sagittarius Cuneta = Capricorn After = Aquarius Performing = Pisces

References

  1. ^ see MUL.APIN. See also Lankford, John History of Astronomy Routledge 1996 ISBN 978-0815303220P.43
  2. ^ OED, citing J. Harris, Lexicon Technicum (1704): "Zodiack of the Comets, Cassini hath observed a certain Tract within whose Bounds he hath found most Comets to keep."
  3. ^ Powell 2004
  4. ^ Hugh Thurston, Early Astronomy, (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1994), p. 135-137.
  5. ^ Scientifically Dating the Constellations
  6. ^ Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning (New York: Dover Publications, 1963), Vol. 1, pp 213-15
  7. ^ David Chilton, 1987, 1990. Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation. Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press. ISBN 0-930462-09-2.
  8. ^ Ernest L. Martin, The Birth of Christ Recalculated (Pasadena, CA: Foundation for Biblical Research, second ed., 1980), pp. 167ff
  9. ^ J. A. Thompson, Numbers
  10. ^ D. Guthrie and J.A. Motyer, eds., The New Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., third ed., 1970) p. 173
  11. ^ Derek and Julia Parker, Ibid, p16, 1990
  12. ^ MUL.APIN; Peter Whitfield, History of Astrology (2001); W. Muss-Arnolt, The Names of the Assyro-Babylonian Months and Their Regents, Journal of Biblical Literature (1892).
  13. ^ 30.4368 SI days or 2629743 seconds in tropical astrology and 30.4380 SI days or 2629846 seconds in sidereal astrology on average (the time spent by the Sun in each sign varies slightly due to the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit).
  14. ^ The Gregorian calendar is built to satisfy the First Council of Nicaea, which placed vernal equinox is on 21 March, but it isn't possible to keep it on a single day within a reasonable system of leap days.
  15. ^ See Jean Meeus, Astronomical Tables of the Sun, Moon, and Planets, 1983 published by Willmann-Bell, Inc., Richmond, Virginia. The date in other time zones may vary.
  16. ^ Astronomical Almanac Online!(subscribers) U.S. Naval Observatory 2008
  17. ^ IAU concluded in 1977
  18. ^ assuming an ayanamsa of 23.86° as of 2000 according to N. C. Lahiri. The precise value used may vary, but is mostly set close to 24°.
  19. ^ Project Gutenberg ebook "An Alphabet Of Old Friends"; see Z for Zodiac.
  20. ^ Rey, H.A. (1952). The Stars, Houghton Mifflin.
  • B. L. van der Waerden, "History of the zodiac", Archiv für Orientforschung 16 (1953) 216–230.
  • Ptolemy, Claudius (1998), written at Princeton, NJ, The Almagest, Princeton University Press, ISBN 069100260 Translated and annotated by G.J. Toomer ; with a foreword by Owen Gingerich.
  • Powell, Robert, Influence of Babylonian Astronomy on the Subsequent Defining of the Zodiac (2004), PhD thesis.
  • Tropical v Sidereal debate, The Traditional Astrologer magazine, (Ascella), Issue 14, May 1997, pp.23–27
  • Peters, Christian Heinrich Friedrich and Edward Ball Knobel. Ptolemy's Catalogue of Stars: a revision of the Almagest. (1915). Publishers, Carnegie Institution of Washington.

whats my zodiac sign

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