I know the calendar shifted in the 1700’s to make up for accumulating errors.
Did that make the zodiac shift farther off, or actually make it more in sync with the months?
And are they static now? Or still tied to celestial cycles rather than the atomic clock with its leap seconds.
While I’m at it, does the Chinese zodiac shift from the world calendar, or is it now attached to it?
Here’s a cite:
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/lessons/indiv/beth/beth_intro.html
"More than 3000 years ago, astronomers wondered how the sky would appear if the stars could be seen during the daytime. Based on their observations of the night sky, some astronomers determined that during the daytime, the Sun would appear to “enter” or pass through a different constellation each month. These twelve constellations are called the Zodiac…According to astrology, a person’s sign is determined by the position of the Sun on the date they were born. Namely, a person is born under the sign of Virgo if the constellation Virgo was behind the Sun at the time of birth. Thus, a person can see their sign constellation approximately 6 months after they are born, since we must wait for the Earth to travel to the other side of the Sun to see the constellation at night.
According to astrological traditions, the Vernal Equinox is the day that the Sun “enters” the constellation Aries. However, this is not always the case, as astronomical observations have found. It turns out that the Earth’s precession makes this astrological prediction wrong. The Earth’s precession causes the Equinoxes to move with respect to the background constellations of the Zodiac. Because of the Earth’s precession, the dates of the Equinoxes gradually change over a 26,000 year cycle. This means that currently the constellation which is behind the Sun, is actually different from the one predicted by astrologers. For example, according to traditional astrology, the Sun is “in Gemini, the Twins” between May 22 and June 21; but when a person looks at the nighttime sky, the constellation of Gemini is easily visible above the western horizon after sunset all through the month of May until around June 20. "
The Master speaks:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_055.html
The start of the zodiac was originally defined to be at the spring equinox. The spring equinox was the beginning of the zodiacal sign Aries, and also the beginning of the year. That is still approximately true in modern astrology’s definition of the zodiacal signs, where for example the sign Aries is associated with birthdates between 21 March (around the spring equinox) and 19 April.
So this so-called “tropical” zodiac (i.e., the zodiac aligned with the seasons, starting with the spring equinox) has never been aligned with the Gregorian calendar where the spring equinox falls in the middle of March instead of at the beginning of a month.
And it never will be, if by “aligned” you mean “each zodiacal sign begins exactly at the beginning of a month”. The sign Aries will always start at the spring equinox, which will always fall around 21 March in our calendar.
Some other calendars that define their months seasonally, so that the start of the first month actually falls at the spring equinox, are aligned with the zodiac, but the Gregorian calendar never will be.
Note that zodiacal signs are different from zodiacal constellations. As DrDeth points out, the so-called sidereal zodiac—the zodiacal signs defined by particular constellations in the sky instead of by the spring equinox—is a different matter. The sidereal zodiac, a division of a circle in the sky beginning with a particular star in the constellation Aries, is thought to have been originally synced up with the tropical zodiac. In other words, the sun entered the sign Aries and the constellation Aries simultaneously at the spring equinox.
But over the course of centuries, the effect of precession has moved the tropical and sidereal zodiacs further apart. Nowadays the sun enters the sign Aries at the spring equinox while it’s still in the constellation Pisces, the one before Aries. The two starting-points will not sync up again for approximately another 20,000 years.
And it’s at the very edge of Pisces, at that. Very soon (precisely how soon depends on precisely where you draw the boundaries between constellations, but perhaps in about 50 years), that point will be in the constellation Aquarius. When this happens, we will enter the “Age of Aquarius”, which those who follow astrology generally claim will mean enlightenment, transcendance, and other similar goodness. Curiously, the current age of Pisces (the fish) began right around the time of the birth of Jesus, who is often symbolized by a fish, a coincidence onto which many astrologers have latched.
I’ve also heard that the age of Aries (the Ram) began around the time Moses was supposed to have descended with the Ten Commandments adorned by ram’s horns. The age of Aries followed the age of Taurus, the Bull. And when he got down, Moses destroyed a goden bull the Jews had made to worship.
Read into that what you will. If the precession of the eqinoxes was known when the early books of teh bible were first written down ni the form we know and if the constellatioins had the same names (or depictions at least) someone might have added those images to the story to coincide.
I’m just pissed that Ophiuchus got hosed out of a place in the zodiac.
I read into it a pretty exaggerated Biblical chronology. Recollect that since the full precessional cycle takes about 26000 years, each of the 12 “ages” associated with zodiacal signs has to be about 2150 years long. IANABiblical scholar, but I don’t think historians allot anywhere near 2150 years between the time of Moses and the birth of Jesus; it’s more like 1200 years.
Unlikely. There’s no historical reason to think that the precession of the equinoxes was recognized before Hellenistic times, and this kind of fanciful symbolism is not a convincing argument for it.
Coincidentally, I just finished an activity with my students using the astronomy program STARRY NIGHT. We are able to block out the Sun and reveal the stars present in the daytime. We set the time for their date of birth. The results show that the Sun is almost invariable in their Zodiac constelliation.
I had heard years ago about a shift in this relationship, the Sun no longer being in your sign at birth, but this demonstration shows that is still true for the most part.
Thanks for the info everyone.
You’re doing something wrong. The Sun is in the same sign and constellation (using constellation boundaries as mapped by the International Astronomical Union) only about 34 days out of the year.
Just to answer this part of the question, the conversion to the Gregorian calendar moved the vernal equinox roughly from the 10th to the 21st of March (with some variation due to leap years and differing times when different countries converted). Signs are tied to the vernal equinox. So the conversion moved the sign change-overs from about the 10th of each month to about the 21st–by coincidence, about equally distant from the first of the month.
And even more so every constellation is being torn apart as the stars travel at different speeds in at least slightly different directions. Some stars will fall behind us and disappear from sight, others will leave us behind and of course they’ll all eventually die.
I’m not doing anything wrong. I have no reason to suspect that STARRY NIGHT is inaccurate. I block out the Sun and type in the correct date. There is a tool that indicates constellations. It tells me the constellation the Sun is in. It may not be exactly the constellation the Sun is in but it is close. It is close enough to convince my student that basics of astrology and the zodiac are correct.
Am I being told that the Sun should be nowhere near the Zodiac constellation or that the Sun is not exactly in the Zodiac constellation? There is a big difference.
The Sun will usually be in the adjacent constellation, since the signs are displaced about one-twelfth of the zodiac relative to the constellations.
Q. The zodiacal calendar is in everyday use in two countries today. Can anybody guess which ones?
A.Afghanistan and Iran.
That makes sense then.
It’ll be hell when that bill comes due! Another Varley fan? How cool!