Sunsign or Moon sign
For those who know me must be thinking already that I have changed my opinion about astrology. No I haven't, from the outset I want to be clear that this post is about the amount of reality actually astrology has.
Last week I was randomly looking at sky and noticed that there is a bright star next to moon. It must have been one of the brightest star because it looked bright even in moon's glare. After I paid attention to the nearby stars I quickly realized that its actually Aldebaran (Rohini in Indian terms) in the constellation of Taurus (Vrushabhaa Rashi ). This is not an unusual sight because the whole reason, the 12 zodiac constellations are relatively famous than other 68 consternations is that the Sun, Moon and other planets appears to pass through them. You never seen Sun, Moon or planets near the north pole.
Now as per Indian Astrology if you were born at a time when the Moon was around the consternation of Taurus your moon-sign becomes "Taurus(Vrushabhaa Rashi)". I looked up a random Horoscope generator on the web and entered the birth date and time of that moment (not that couple of hours would have made a lot of difference because it takes almost a couple of days for the Moon to jump constellations) and got the following chart.
If you notice there are 12 sections in this chart numbered in sequence starting from right bottom (adjacent to the right edge ) anti-clock wise. Each section in astrology denotes one zodiac sign (Yeah ! I know basics of Astrology as well because growing up these were the only charts I had for locating planets ). Section 1 is for Aries and section 2 is for Taurus and so on all the way till Pieces which is section 12. The two letter symbols in some of the sections are planets and Sun and the Moon. You can see the section 2 has "Mo" that says the Moon is in Taurus. BINGO ! That's what I just saw in sky. Indian astrology seems to make sense ? Well not really ! Its all "Indian Astronomy". Astrologers just added some predictions on top of it. Probably astrologers haven't even ever seen the sky or can't even recognize which one is what planet or star. They took all the knowledge from ancient astronomers and scared the shit out of people. Can you really believe someone who bets on the planets which he can't even identify but any random person with a little knowledge of astronomy can ?
The left side of the photo is from a computer simulation software "Stellarium" and the right side is the actual photo that I took. The Moon is clearly in Taurus isn't it ?
Let's come to the western world. Most of the daily newspaper and online astrology column gives you 12 sun-sign and their date ranges. E.g Aries (21st March to 19th April), Taurus is (20th April to 20th May) , Sagittarius (22nd November to 21st December), Capricorn (22nd December to 19th January) and Aquarius (21st Jan to 18th Feb). Western astrology claims these are your sun-signs if you were born on respective dates because the Sun is in the respective constellation as seen from earth.
Let's pull the Simulation software again and see where the Sun been these days. Since I can't see the Sun directly and blind my eyes and stars are not visible in the day time, following is the simulated chart of the Sky of 29th January 2015.
Wait ! What ? The Sun is in Capricornus ? But it was Jan 29 and it should be in the middle of Aquarius as per western Astrology.
This is clearly wrong. At least the birth chart (Kundali) above shows the Sun (Su) is in 10th section i.e. Capricorn. Aquarius is the 11th section.
Probably we know the reason why western astrology's positions are off by 1 constellation. Tidal forces from the sun cause the earth’s axis to wobble over a 26,000 year period. So the Sun drifts a very small amount every year and in 2000 years it actually goes and sits in a different constellation (Zodiac). When western astrology borrowed the star charts and calculations from Astronomers 2000 years ago the Sun used be in Aquarius on every Jan 29. This can be validated by the simulation software setting the time to year 0000 Jan 29. None of the astrologers bothered to look back and validate it after that but kept on saying random predictions about someone life. This is really silly. At least they should have got the facts right for the sun-signs. So remember to subtract one month from your birthday when you see the daily horoscope next time. I am joking, just read any of the 12 horoscope , you will find something believable and true exclusively to you. Those are written in such a generic way.
So the point is the terms like planets , stars and calculations of their position that the astrologers use are real (well almost :) we have exposed the flaw ) and people start to believe them at that point but it has no correlation with your life's past/present or future. Well enough of astrology bashing. I don't even take it seriously, the only problem I have is when people take decisions based on that, like fixing marriage date and travel plans etc. Rather take such decisions by rolling a dice or local weather or just based on dates when its convenient for others. I am sure you will get more "blessings" in later case.
Some would argue that there may be hidden science behind astrology that human mind is yet to comprehend. Well I agree there may be a lot of forces and facts to be discovered but its not science if it can not be explained logically and I refuse to believe till there is any evidence.
Last week I was randomly looking at sky and noticed that there is a bright star next to moon. It must have been one of the brightest star because it looked bright even in moon's glare. After I paid attention to the nearby stars I quickly realized that its actually Aldebaran (Rohini in Indian terms) in the constellation of Taurus (Vrushabhaa Rashi ). This is not an unusual sight because the whole reason, the 12 zodiac constellations are relatively famous than other 68 consternations is that the Sun, Moon and other planets appears to pass through them. You never seen Sun, Moon or planets near the north pole.
Now as per Indian Astrology if you were born at a time when the Moon was around the consternation of Taurus your moon-sign becomes "Taurus(Vrushabhaa Rashi)". I looked up a random Horoscope generator on the web and entered the birth date and time of that moment (not that couple of hours would have made a lot of difference because it takes almost a couple of days for the Moon to jump constellations) and got the following chart.
 |
| Birth Chart or Kundali of a person born on 29th Jan 2015 |
If you notice there are 12 sections in this chart numbered in sequence starting from right bottom (adjacent to the right edge ) anti-clock wise. Each section in astrology denotes one zodiac sign (Yeah ! I know basics of Astrology as well because growing up these were the only charts I had for locating planets ). Section 1 is for Aries and section 2 is for Taurus and so on all the way till Pieces which is section 12. The two letter symbols in some of the sections are planets and Sun and the Moon. You can see the section 2 has "Mo" that says the Moon is in Taurus. BINGO ! That's what I just saw in sky. Indian astrology seems to make sense ? Well not really ! Its all "Indian Astronomy". Astrologers just added some predictions on top of it. Probably astrologers haven't even ever seen the sky or can't even recognize which one is what planet or star. They took all the knowledge from ancient astronomers and scared the shit out of people. Can you really believe someone who bets on the planets which he can't even identify but any random person with a little knowledge of astronomy can ?
The left side of the photo is from a computer simulation software "Stellarium" and the right side is the actual photo that I took. The Moon is clearly in Taurus isn't it ?
Let's come to the western world. Most of the daily newspaper and online astrology column gives you 12 sun-sign and their date ranges. E.g Aries (21st March to 19th April), Taurus is (20th April to 20th May) , Sagittarius (22nd November to 21st December), Capricorn (22nd December to 19th January) and Aquarius (21st Jan to 18th Feb). Western astrology claims these are your sun-signs if you were born on respective dates because the Sun is in the respective constellation as seen from earth.
Let's pull the Simulation software again and see where the Sun been these days. Since I can't see the Sun directly and blind my eyes and stars are not visible in the day time, following is the simulated chart of the Sky of 29th January 2015.
 |
| Position of Sun on 29th Jan 2015 is in Capricornus. |
Wait ! What ? The Sun is in Capricornus ? But it was Jan 29 and it should be in the middle of Aquarius as per western Astrology.
This is clearly wrong. At least the birth chart (Kundali) above shows the Sun (Su) is in 10th section i.e. Capricorn. Aquarius is the 11th section.
Probably we know the reason why western astrology's positions are off by 1 constellation. Tidal forces from the sun cause the earth’s axis to wobble over a 26,000 year period. So the Sun drifts a very small amount every year and in 2000 years it actually goes and sits in a different constellation (Zodiac). When western astrology borrowed the star charts and calculations from Astronomers 2000 years ago the Sun used be in Aquarius on every Jan 29. This can be validated by the simulation software setting the time to year 0000 Jan 29. None of the astrologers bothered to look back and validate it after that but kept on saying random predictions about someone life. This is really silly. At least they should have got the facts right for the sun-signs. So remember to subtract one month from your birthday when you see the daily horoscope next time. I am joking, just read any of the 12 horoscope , you will find something believable and true exclusively to you. Those are written in such a generic way.
So the point is the terms like planets , stars and calculations of their position that the astrologers use are real (well almost :) we have exposed the flaw ) and people start to believe them at that point but it has no correlation with your life's past/present or future. Well enough of astrology bashing. I don't even take it seriously, the only problem I have is when people take decisions based on that, like fixing marriage date and travel plans etc. Rather take such decisions by rolling a dice or local weather or just based on dates when its convenient for others. I am sure you will get more "blessings" in later case.
Some would argue that there may be hidden science behind astrology that human mind is yet to comprehend. Well I agree there may be a lot of forces and facts to be discovered but its not science if it can not be explained logically and I refuse to believe till there is any evidence.