Zodiacs and Horoscopes - and why the dates are wrong

[Bob T]

Further to my recent trip to the New Zealand Stonehenge site

My clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJ6TlW0l3I

Some light reading for anyone interested, which was one of the more interesting discoveries from the NZ Stonehenge trip.
Not that I attach a lot of credence to horoscopes and astrology, which are, at best , a pseudoscience - but the attributes for the Zodiac signs ring true at least.
What did intrigue me was that the common held "dates " of the published horoscopes in newspapers and magazines  are in fact wrong, which was shown to me by the head Astronomer , Richard Hill, a very interesting chap and former director of programmes at the Carter Observatory in Wellington. This is due to Precession - movement of the Earth's axis, and relates to about a degree of ''shift'' every 72 years or thereabouts.

In the attached pics, the ''pointer/sundial'' on top of the Obelisk at 12.17 local corrected time projects a shadow on to the Annaleum mosiac, onto which the signs of the Zodiac are painted in the correct position relating the the current axis position.
Richard then asked around the other visitors present for their birthdays and was able to show that that in most cases the dates were approximately 15 days out ( occurring earlier in the Zodiac then previously known or observed ) Mine included.

The reason how this came about was that the Church suppressed any information ( in the Western world ) that related to or questioned the divine theory that the big guy created the lot and that the other planets revolved around the Earth. To say anything otherwise was regarded as heresay and the Church suppressed all publication of Precession relating to Zodiac signs until 1910, and by then the dates were very inaccurate due to centuries passing and degree of shift.
The Indians knew about it though and calculated their astrologies accordingly. So there are two types of Zodiac calculation, Tropical ( the womans mag horoscopes etc ) with a large percentage of the population reading horoscopes not even relating to them and Sidereal ( the accurate one according to the current constellation axis ) . Funny eh.
So Im actually a Pisces after thinking I was an Aries at 7 April.

Check out this link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac

Interesting enough info to share anyway

The last pic has a hole sloping upward in the Obelisk, this points up to the Southern Celestial Pole, so if a timelapse photo was taken through this hole, the stars would rotate around it being the centre of the night sky, neat eh.
Pretty impressive place and one that I had long wanted to travel to, one of the cool things was that the volunteers that built it were able to obtain a grant under the science and technology criteria and thus provide benefit for all New Zealanders with a practical open air Observatory. It also acts as a funding stream for the Phoenix Astromomical Society that operates its telescopes in the buildings adjacent to the Henge

[Bob T]

The hole in the Obelisk through which the Southern Celestial Pole SCP can be observed