posted February 19, 2006 10:09 PM         

If asked, most people would say that a "Gemini" is a person who was born when the sun was in front of the stars of the constellation Gemini the twins. That might have been true about 2,600 years ago, but it isn't today-for two reasons.

First, when the astrological sun sign system was set up more than two thousand years ago, the sun's path was divided into twelve equally spaced "signs," each 30 degrees wide, and these signs only approximately coincided with the constellations. Cancer, for example, is a small constellation, and Pisces is huge, but both are accorded onetwelfth of the sun's annual path. The constellation Cancer -- which is made of stars - never coincided exactly with the sign of Cancer -- which is a 30 degree wide zone along the sun's path. And each astronomer/astrologer had his own idea of where the constellation Cancer began and ended, and even of how many constellations there were.

The table below lists the dates when the sun is in the real astronomical constellations of the zodiac. The dates fluctuate by a day from year to year.

Now, will an Ophiuchus please stand up!

Astronomical Constellations of the Zodiac

Constellation Dates

Capricornus January 19 to February 15
Aquarius February 16 to March 11
Pisces March 12 to April 18
Aries April 19 to May 13
Taurus May 14 to June 19
Gemini June 20 to July 20
Cancer July 21 to August 9
Leo August 10 to September 15
Virgo September 16 to October 30
Libra October 31 to November 22
Scorpius November 23 to November 29
Ophiuchus November 30 to December 17
Sagittarius December 18 to January 18
http://www.griffithobs.org/SkyOphiuchus.html

posted February 20, 2006 05:14 AM         

j/k

posted February 20, 2006 07:55 AM         

There was some discussion in there about this some time ago. I know there was in Astrology too... but I can't seem to make the search function work for the Astro forum.

http://www.linda-goodman.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=display private&number=12&topic=000253