2014 Year of the Horse...........Chinese Zodiac

Warrigal said:
I remember James Randi doing an experiment with college students. He gave each of them a sealed envelope that he said contained a description of their personality, based on their DOB which was in the college records. After each read the description he asked them to raise a hand if the description was accurate. Almost everyone did so. Then he had them swap descriptions and it was then that they discovered that the blurb was exactly the same in every envelope. And totally meaningless.
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Two things -

1. College students are not known for their astuteness.

2. Randi is a jerk.
 

SifuPhil said:
Pegasus should be visible in the Southern Hemisphere in the Spring ...and how about Sagittarius? That should be visible to you in the Winter.
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The whole of the Zodiac is theoretically visible from the northern and southern hemispheres but only the brightest stars can be see with the naked eye. I used to be able to pick out Leo, Scorpio, Virgo, Taurus and Gemini but Aquarius and Cancer, for example were just about invisible. Orion, Centaurus and Corvus are easily spotted as is the Southern Cross.

Most of my star gazing was done in Summer and early Autumn.
 

Unfortunately I have pretty bad eyes, so I always needed a telescope.

I just picked up a piece of software called Starry Night Pro Plus - it's a premium star-charting software with tons of telescope adjustments, allows for importation of new astral data and lots more nerd stuff like that. :D
 
Summer holiday camping in the Warrumbungles (near Siding Springs observatory) was a wonderful place to observe the night sky.
The number of stars that were visible took my breath away. I could see the Milky Way (and the Coal Sack) as a river of stars sweeping across the sky and I was even able to pick out the Magellanic Clouds quite clearly. Paradoxically, it was harder to pick out some familiar constellations because there were too many stars. It was easier in the suburbs with just the brightest ones standing out.
 
...further to off topic, but while were there... they're Koori words and they didn't have words for big or multiples so they just doubled the name to denote the fact. There's a lot of double barrelled towns around. There's a place in the outback called the Bungle Bungles. It's a little cluster of strange domes like a mini mountain range. It's a cluster so it got a double name. Lucky the Warrumbungles range are treated as one, that'd be hard to rattle off twice.

Back to astrology: read the other day some ramble from a journo trying to prove that the Kooris are the oldest living race of 'astronomers.' He's searched the legends etc for proof and came up with a constellation called The Emu. That's the best he could manage apparently. No, no one else has ever heard of it either. Can't say I've heard any of their legends that proved they knew much about how the stars worked at all. They must have used them to navigate the desert but that seems about it. Even their legends and myths are more grounded than celestial. Nice try for a grant though.

Strange they didn't give more thought to the sky as other primitive groups did but then they were living in harder country and had more pressing matters to think about around the campfire, like planning hunts to feed themselves, than stargazing. God knows they already have/had the most complex and convoluted legends to account for nature on the planet, they sure didn't need to add astrology to it.
 
Warri: Beautiful country..I would love to visit there sometime, but guess I'll never make it that far anymore.

Di: Does Bungle mean something translatable, like mountain or volcano? Sounds like a good dog's name..Here Bungles, come Bungles, bad dog Bungles!


Now back to our regular scheduled program:

A quick informative tutorial of the constellations:

 
Warrigal said:
The whole of the Zodiac is theoretically visible from the northern and southern hemispheres but only the brightest stars can be see with the naked eye. I used to be able to pick out Leo, Scorpio, Virgo, Taurus and Gemini but Aquarius and Cancer, for example were just about invisible. Orion, Centaurus and Corvus are easily spotted as is the Southern Cross.

Most of my star gazing was done in Summer and early Autumn.
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This is so embarrassing! My father was a career Naval Aviator and tried teaching to navigate by the stars. I still can't tell one from the other . . . except, maybe the sun...! I think it was the pressure. Anyone familiar with The Great Santini? Then, you might understand...
 

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