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"I've got to warn you, Gary, that this isn't true AT ALL. Do you really suppose that astrologers would somehow have missed the news out of Greece 21 centuries ago informing the world of the existence of the precession of the equinoxes?? Professional or "real" astrologers are, in fact, well aware of this. The problem for people who know just enough astronomy to mock astrologers is that they don't understand what the zodiacal signs are (there are, by the way, plenty of excellent reasons to doubt astrology, but this is not one of them). The signs of the zodiac are indeed named after the constellations, but they are not the same as the constellations. The signs, from a mathematical perspective, can be considered nothing more than an extension of the sexagesimal system of degrees, minutes, and seconds. They are simply thirty-degree divisions of the circle. So, for example, I can express a position in a circle as 3s, 10d, 15', 59" where "3s" means "third sign". Depending on whether the numbering starts with zero or one, this "3s" would be equivalent to either 90 or 60 degrees. When applied to the ecliptic, these thirty-degree bands of ecliptic longitude are given names (corresponding to the constellations lined up with them thousands of years ago). So the first thirty-degree band is called Aries, the second Taurus, and so on. Thus the position of a planet could be given in quick shorthand as "Aries 12" or "Taurus 28" which, in modern terminology, would mean that the ecliptic longitude of that planet is 12 degrees or 58 degrees respectively. Is that easier? Is it perhaps easier to remember "Taurus 28"?? I would say that it depends on what you're used to. It rather reminds me of "Klondike 5-1234" being replaced by "555-1234" (see the PS if that is an unfamiliar reference for anyone following along)......"

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I understand your meaning that the Zodiacal signs are just another way to express right ascension or  SHA. The sun has a R.A. on October 24th, the beginning of Scorpio, of 14 hours and Scorpio ends when the sun's R.A. is 16 hours ( a range of SHAs from 150° to 120°)  on November 22nd. I've got no problem with this but this usage is astronomy, not astrology. As I understand the tenants of astrology to be (and I have never studied astrology so I am no expert) that the sun's relationship to the stars at the time of your birth determines your character and you future. For example, if the ancient astrologers determined  that those born when the sun was near Antares ended up being great lovers what does that say about modern people born under the sign of Scorpio when the sun is nowhere near Antares but is actually in the middle of the stars in Libra?  If being a great lover was associated with being born when the sun was near Antares then the dates for this astrological sign (not as used by astronomers as you show by your examples) need to be adjusted by a month. That was the point I was making with my first post.

gl

( I used to have a phone in Chicago, BUtterfield 8-0163.)

I've got to warn you, Gary, that this isn't true AT ALL. Do you really suppose that astrologers would somehow have missed the news out of Greece 21 centuries ago informing the world of the existence of the precession of the equinoxes?? Professional or "real" astrologers are, in fact, well aware of this. The problem for people who know just enough astronomy to mock astrologers is that they don't understand what the zodiacal signs are (there are, by the way, plenty of excellent reasons to doubt astrology, but this is not one of them). The signs of the zodiac are indeed named after the constellations, but they are not the same as the constellations. The signs, from a mathematical perspective, can be considered nothing more than an extension of the sexagesimal system of degrees, minutes, and seconds. They are simply thirty-degree divisions of the circle. So, for example, I can express a position in a circle as 3s, 10d, 15', 59" where "3s" means "third sign". Depending on whether the numbering starts with zero or one, this "3s" would be equivalent to either 90 or 60 degrees. When applied to the ecliptic, these thirty-degree bands of ecliptic longitude are given names (corresponding to the constellations lined up with them thousands of years ago). So the first thirty-degree band is called Aries, the second Taurus, and so on. Thus the position of a planet could be given in quick shorthand as "Aries 12" or "Taurus 28" which, in modern terminology, would mean that the ecliptic longitude of that planet is 12 degrees or 58 degrees respectively. Is that easier? Is it perhaps easier to remember "Taurus 28"?? I would say that it depends on what you're used to. It rather reminds me of "Klondike 5-1234" being replaced by "555-1234" (see the PS if that is an unfamiliar reference for anyone following along).

Now you might think that only superstitious astrologers would use such a weird system as attaching verbal labels to bands of ecliptic longitude or using names that do not reflect the current sky, but it's not so. As late as the early 19th century, professional astronomers still used the "S.D.M.S." (sign, degree, minute, second) system for listing ecliptic longitudes. I am attaching a page from the Nautical Almanac from 1820. And note that this is not back in the dark ages. This is over a century after Isaac Newton, decades after the discovery of the planet Uranus (known as the "Georgian" in Britain back then), and it's after the Enlightenment and the birth of real modern science. Nonetheless, they used the zodiac signs to specify the positions of the planets. In the attached almanac page, the geocentric longitude (meaning geocentric longitude in ecliptic coordinates) for Mercury on April 1, 1820 is listed under S.D.M. as 0.27.27. For us today, that's just 27d 27' ecliptic longitude. Meanwhile, at the bottom, the longitude of the Georgian is 8.28.48 which would be, as a modern angle, 268d 48' (268=8*30+28).

And lest you still think you might mock astrologers for using such an old-fashioned, nearly two-hundred-years obsolete, system for naming positions along the ecliptic, bear in mind that a clever enough astrologer can turn the tables on you and point out that celestial navigators do EXACTLY the same thing in one special case, a vestige of that common usage from 200 years ago. The "GHA of Aries", so important in navigation, does not refer to the constellation Aries at all. It's almost as if celestial navigators are "too stupid to realize that precession exists" (so a debating astrologer might say). But no, this is just the old system for labeling the ecliptic. It's called Aries because that's the name for the first band of thirty degrees, the zero point of ecliptic longitude, starting from the point where the ecliptic crosses the celestial equator north-bound.

By the way, there are some very intelligent people who post here who take a serious interest in astrology and do not consider it nonsense.

...Not me.

-FER