Talk:Zodiac

Cetus and Ophiuchus as a Parazodiac

In ancient times, Cetus could been part of the constellation Pisces and Ophiuchus served for the 8th astrological month we now associate with the constellation Scorpio, or possibly Libra was either a subgroup of stars with the constellation Virgo. The ancient astrologers in India, Persia and Babylonia once had an "Arachnida" constellation for a zodiac but was phased out along with the concept of Orion and Perseus when the sun's orbit traveled farther south on the eliptic and the North Astronomical pole moved a few degrees away from the constellation of Draco. We would later have reimagined Scorpio, Aquarius and Gemini from the former "Phoenix", "Eagle" and "Hawk" constellations to the current designs of an Scorpion, the Water Carrier and the Twins. 71.102.3.122 (talk) 06:39, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Please provide your sources. The ecliptic (the Sun's apparent orbit) does not move much over thousands of years among the stars. According to the IAU 2006 precession equations, the ecliptic has shifted only 0.67° over 5000 years (π_A). This is insignificant compared to the size of constellations so has no affect on which constellations are zodiacal. You are thinking of the movement of the celestial equator, which has an accumulated lunisolar precession ψ_A (the angle along the J2000 ecliptic due to the movement of the equator) of 69.41° in 5000 years. See Williams 1994, p.720, Fig.1 and Capitaine P03, p.582, §7.1. Even though the celestial equator and the celestial poles do move significantly, they only affect which ecliptic constellations contain the equinoxes and solstices — they have no affect on which constellations are along the ecliptic. However, the constellations to which stars are assigned differ significantly among different cultures. Even the contellations in the Western tradition have changed over human history. Although the Babylonians included Libra (the balance) among their zodiacal constellations, Ptolemy did not. Instead, Ptolemy called its stars Claws (of the scorpion). Furthermore, Ptolemy clearly lists many stars that are near but outside named constellations, that is, outside the outlines of the mythical figures. Ptolemy first lists constellations north of the zodiac (including Ophiuchus), then twelve zodiacal constellations which are identical to the modern constellations except for Claws instead of Libra, and then those south of the zodiac. See Ptolemy's Almagest annotated and translated by G. J. Toomer, Book 7. The scorpion is an arachnid, that is, it has eight legs. Furthermore, its claws, as attested by Ptolemy, are not part of the constellation anyway. The shape of its bright stars evoke an image of the curved tail of a scorpion, rather then the compact body of a spider. — Joe Kress (talk) 03:25, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Good article?

If there is one astrology/astronomy article that is a priority to take to good article and featured article, it is probably this one. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:35, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

The article is not exactly accurate in my opinion and needs more citations in some paragraphs 91.138.238.198 (talk) 16:24, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Paragraph needs citations

The following paragraph in the page makes some claims without any citations:

The Babylonian star catalogues entered Greek astronomy in the 4th century BC, via Eudoxus of Cnidus and others. Babylonia or Chaldea in the Hellenistic world came to be so identified with astrology that "Chaldean wisdom" became among Greeks and Romans the synonym of divination through the planets and stars. Hellenistic astrology originated from Babylonian and Egyptian astrology [CITATION NEEDED HERE]. Horoscopic astrology first appeared in Ptolemaic Egypt [CITATION NEEDED HERE]. The Dendera zodiac, a relief dating to ca. 50 BC, is the first known depiction of the classical zodiac of twelve signs.[CITATION NEEDED HERE]

The Hellenestic astrology from what i know IS NOT originated from the Egyptian and has differences compared to the Babylonian 91.138.238.198 (talk) 16:21, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Other zodiacs?

Shouldn't this article mention the other zodiacs (Chinese, for example) or at least have a link to them, because people could come here looking for zodiacs in general. Thylacinus cynocephalus (talk) 03:42, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Some clarifications on the modifications of the Table of Dates section

I just wanted to mention a few things on my edit of the Table of Dates section, specifically the table itself, on this page.

First off, if anybody can, please confirm the dates of the reference I used with an additional source, especially the sidereal dates, that is, any source besides horoscope.com, that site seems questionable and unprofessional to me. But it seems you search for sidereal zodiac on the internet and it's hard to find anything but the mix-up about Ophiuchus being the "13th sign".

Also I believe some of the labels seemed somewhat crowded with information available elsewhere (for instance, "IAU constellation boundaries (2011)" is redundant when you have another label "Constellation" right above it). I thought it would look a bit cleaner without that redundant or unnecessary information (Jyotisha may be necessary, but the link is available elsewhere on the page under a more recognizable name).

Isangaft220 (talk) 15:15, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

In 2003 the label was called Actual Astronomical Dates [1] --Regards, Necessary Evil (talk) 16:22, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Since you are most concerned with the sidereal dates, have you located a good definition of the sidereal signs and/or dates. If an authoritative definition can be found, any number of astronomical books and computer programs can be used to find the dates. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:29, 22 February 2012 (UTC)