Re: My comment on this group.

On May 15, 6:03 pm, Chris L Peterson <c...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 15 May 2007 09:20:49 -0700, "Le`Vlogue :)"

<telecommuniqueas...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This is what I understand, correct me if I am wrong (anybody).
-The zodiacs were named after animals (who knows why) and then people
came along and started ascribing horoscopes to them. Ahhhhhh, ok! The
zodiacs circle the Earth like a chandelier.

I'm sure that there have been constellations (asterisms might be a
better word) for as long as people have been looking at the sky. The
zodiacal constellations are those that lie along the ecliptic- the path
in the sky that the Sun, Moon, and planets appear to travel along. In
most cases, 12 constellations were abstracted from this path because the
cultures that did so apparently broke the year into 12 parts. This is a
natural number of months based on a lunar calendar, which nearly all
ancient cultures used.


One of the oldest known structures created by humans is a clock that
accurately determines the annual cycle,it has done so for over 5 200
years and in a spectacular way -

http://www.iol.ie/~geniet/eng/newgrang.htm

These ancient people could do what you cannot because you have the
annual cycle of the Earth forced into a calendar system and its 1461
day cycle,all wrapped up in constellational geometry.The ancient
principles which created the equable 24 hour day out of the annual
cycle were so strong and so stable that until the modern era,the
advancements of Harrison with clocks and the underlying principles
advanced by Huygens could stay above the celestial sphere systems
that were begining to dominate until we reach this era when there is
outright hostility to the insights of the great astronomical
timekeepers.





WHY did they name the stars after animals?

Gemini? Virgo? Libra? Sagittarius? Aquarius? None of these are animals.
But in the world of the cultures that named the constellations, animals
were a major fixture. Not surprising that many were so named. Consider
that when the European explorers first encountered the southern skies,
they created new constellations which tended to be named for what caught
their imagination then: scientific instruments and other products of
technology.

In the Chinese zodiac all the constellations are represented by animals.

-Are they the first to map stars? If not wHO was mapping stars before
them?

Nobody knows who first mapped the stars, nor why they did so. It seems
likely that the reasons were found in mythology, astrology, and time
keeping. Of course, humans are pattern processors and classifiers, so
it's not surprising we'd invent constellations. The roots of the western
zodiac as we know it go back at least to the Babylonians, some 3000
years ago. It was subsequently modified by the Greeks, creating the
"modern" zodiac.


The great timekeeping astromers were and are pragmatic people ,if
they were not we would not have their systems to use and abuse
today.They had that great sense to split the difference between the
annual cycle and the calendrical cycle (which is astrologically
based),the former generating the equable 24 hour day and all its
consequences and the calendar system as a convenient linear
progression of cycles.When clocks emerged in the late 17th century,the
difference was forgotten and these numbskulls started to express the
cycles in terms of clocks and calendars.






-What names did THEY have for the star patterns?

A few are known because of archaeological research. It's only necessary
to look around the world today, and you'll see how many different
constellation systems exist.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatoryhttp://www.cloudbait.com

Your kind hijacked the careful observations of so many people covering
so many civilisations and condensed them into a silly correlation that
says if a star in a constellation returns in 23 hours 56 minutes 04
seconds then this most prove axial rotation is constant.It was never
that simple and while we still use the great systems created by our
timekeeping ancestors ,their pragmatic and gorgeous reasoning is now
used as a weapon to destroy structural astronomy and specifically the
Copernican insight and later refinements.

Are you not ecstatic that nobody will question you or object to the
destruction of the global part of timekeeping astronomy and the great
Western heliocentric additions ?.I guess you feel no remorse for the
effort of so many brilliant people as you go about your magnification
hobby.


.

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