Check that horoscope!

Better than being all over the place, open to any suggestion, suseptable to drug addiction .... So what if we fish are psychic, etc ... give me something COMMANDING & CERTAIN for a day I say!

LOL! I love pisces - in fact, I HAVE loved many Pisces - and Aquarians - to my sorrow - but, by gum, they were fun while they lasted!

This is for you, Gautam (though you appear to have vanished) Actually I sent your daily one (Libra) last night, but couldn't post it coz of an outage at A2K. So here's today's:

Dealing with social and refined people is pleasant, but not always possible. Today you may be forced to cope with folks who are less than cooperative. If you find yourself bristling at their rude behaviour , keep in mind that you're being tested. :wink: By appearing impassive, you will prompt these bullies to seek a more vulnerable target. Make life easy for yourself and turn a deaf ear to all nasty comments and barbs.

And the new (weekly) one for Pisces:


Early in his career, Robert Bly rarely wrote love poetry, though he studied the work of others who did. As he aged, he stopped reading the angst-ridden ruminations of modern poets and sought out the ecstatic love poetry of mystics like Rumi and Kabir. Increasingly, forgiveness and compassion became central aspects of Bly's emotional repertoire. His rage about his own past romantic disappointments dissipated. In his mid-forties, he wrote Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, his first collection of love poetry. A critic in the New York Times Book Review said it wasn't a real book of love poems, because there wasn't enough hatred and anger in it. To which I say: Ha! Your assignment this week, Pisces, is to write a love poem and think love thoughts from which all hate and anger have been purged.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm ...

MsOlga -- What an interesting horoscope you have today! I've never thought of Robert Bly as a love poem poet -- guess I'll have to check up on him. Definitely all hate and anger should be erased. Whatever was that NYTimes critic thinking?

Deb -- You're a Leo? Well.... THAT explains a lot! LOL. Just kidding, I live with a Leo. Leo says, "It's my opinion and it's perfectly true."

Satt -- I knew a little bit about Jung's interest in astrology, but not that he might request a horoscope to get more insight. I wonder how many psychologists and psychiatrists do that today? Probably not many. Thanks for the additional information about the moon's position.

How would you tell what moon phase was happening at the moment of your birth? I mean, we know what the ascendant house is, but not whether it is a new moon, full moon or something in between.

Piffka..
I have programs on my computer that can calculate a fairly exact moon phase for a given day of these thousands of years. If you would like to know, give me multiple instances of years, months, dates, (hours, minutes, seconds).
How could it calculate them?.. It is through computing lunar position, solar position (or the position of the earth relative to the sun) and the shaded area on the moon at the given instance.

Fabulous Satt -- I can't imagine how you've managed to create such software but I'd be so pleased for you to try. Nobody ever uses the moon-phase (that I know of) when they're making a horoscope but it seems it would be as important as anything else.

Okay... 1950, December 17th, 2am exactly. Let's see, it is very near Longitude 122.41 and Latitude 37.78, just above sea-level.

Thanks.

I have tried it.

The computation has been performed for the date-time 1950, Dec 17 02:00 PST (GMT-0800). (This date-time is 1950, Dec 17 10:00 GMT.)

The raw outcomes are:
--
Timezone: PST
Julian Day Number to be used: 2433632.95833333

Lunar Longitude: 8.770864 <Solar Longitude>: 264.94345
Lunar Latitude: 1.3043004
Lunar Phase: 103.8274 degs (8.516901 (days))

<Next New Moon will be on: Sunday, 7 January 1951 GMT (2433654.3402076312j.d.)>
--

Some Explanations:

1) Julian Day Number is the consecutive number allocated uniquely to every date-time independent from timezones, and by using it one can avoid the confusion caused by multiple timezone conversions.

2) One lunar month consists of 29.5306 days, and this means the full moon is attained at the lunar day 14.7653, and the first quarter moon is attained at the lunar day 7.38265, and the new moon is at the lunar day 0.

3) The date you gave corresponds to the lunar day 8.5169 and this is 1.13425 days after the first quarter moon, or in other words the moon is in the phase of "Waxing Gibbous Moon."


(The algorithm is based on "Calendrical Calculations: The Millennium Edition", by E.M. Reingold & N.Dershowitz, Cambridge UP, 2001.)

I should have added that the waxing gibbous moon was over the Pacific ocean at the instant of time given.

Well, I like that~! I like things to start between the new moon and the full. Thanks for making all these calculations. Can you explain about the Julian day and its having such a long decimal? Does the Julian day start at the GM?

BTW -- I was checking around and found this interesting bit from a website in Melbourne:




Zelko Karlovic A-Z of Astronomy

Today's horoscope:

You will remind many of Abraham Lincoln, with your oratory gifts, dedication to equality, and habit of getting shot in the head at theaters.

Uh-oh - better stay at the bar tonight 'til closing and not tempt fate.

I am glad to hear you liked it.

Julian Day Number is the consecutive number allocated to date-time with origin (i.e., time zero) at noon of January 1st, 4713 BCE in the (proleptic) Greenwich Mean Time.
Although the name "Julian" is contained in the designation, it is not related with Julian Calendar (or even with Julius Caesar) , but comes from the concept of the Julian Period conceived by the 16th-century French classicist Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609). The Julian period is a cycle of 7980 years consisting of multiple cycles inside it, e.g., Metonic cycle of 19 years, a "solar cycle" of 28 years..
Today it is used only for astronomical calculations.

For example:
Noon April 20, 2003 GMT .. 2452750.0 j.d.
(05:00 April 20, 2003 PDT)

My gosh, I've never heard of this Julian Day before. I think it is particularly interesting that the Julian Day starts at noon. It makes me think of that "calendar" discovered in, I think, the Mayan ruins. It seems that had a huge scope of many thousands of years and was supposed to incorporate astronomical cycles.

The following is the Mayan calendar for today.

(Saturday, 19th April 2003 on Gregorian Calendar 2452749 j.d.)
12.19.10.3.6 .. Mayan long count
14 Pop
6 Cimi

It was particularly convenient for astronomers in England/Europe, as the change of number happened in the daytime not when observing the sky in the midnight.

<teehee> Very clever.

Is there a mathematical connection between the two calendars?

The Mayan calendar is written strangely, as though they were still figuring the astronomical cycles or wanted them separate for some reason. Interesting, anyway that there are so many divisions.

The formula to obtain dates in mayan calendar from gregorian calendar is not much complicated. One of the most difficult things is determining the starting epoch (time zero) of the calendar.
In the above, starting epoch of the mayan long count was taken to be

epoch = September 6, 3114 BCE (Julian calendar)
= 584283 j.d. (at noon (proleptic) GMT).


As the starting epoch is uncertain, the ending date of a cycle does not have much significance.

(The is based on "Calendrical Calculations: The Millennium Edition", by E.M. Reingold & N.Dershowitz, Cambridge UP, 2001.)

This week's Pisces horror-scope:

On certain occasions, I encourage you to sacrifice your own needs for the sake of others', or try to heal their wounds before you attend to your own. But this is not one of those times. It wouldn't be in alignment with the cosmic mojo. What, then, would be the most righteous course of action? Here's what I think: Rouse your most imaginative brilliance as you dream up ways to be really good to yourself. Shower yourself with gifts, treats, and blessings. Take all that tender loving care you're so skilled at administering to others, and bestow it on yourself.

EEK! Horribly apt!!!

And what abt us great Librans ?