See also: Zodiac (homonymy)

The zodiac is the zone of the skies around the ecliptic where, seen Ground, pass the Sun and the Planet S. the zodiac is traditionally divided into twelve Constellation S corresponding to twelve signs. Generally, the general public heard of the astrological signs of the zodiac in an astrological context and not astronomical.

Etymology

Constellations of the zodiac

See also: Constellation

The trajectory of the Sun on the vault of heaven is the ecliptic . The planets and the Moon deviate some more or less, and one retains like conventional limit of the zodiac a band of eight degrees of arc on both sides of the ecliptic. The ecliptic crosses thirteen constellations in the sky, but one of them, Ophiuchus (or Serpent eater), does not form part of the traditional zodiac.

The constellations present in the zodiac are: the Ram, the Bull, the Gemini, the Cancer (or Scarab3ee), the Lion, the Virgin , the Balance, the Scorpion, Ophiuchus (or Serpent eater), the Sagittarius, the Capricorn, the Aquarius and the Poisson.

Signs of the zodiac

See also: astrological Sign

The zodiac was divided with the O C into Twelve left equal (for each Mois of the Année) to which one gave the name of the Constellation nearest (constellation which could exist well before the creation of the zodiac):

• the Ram, first sign of the zodiac, is the sector where the Sun between with the vernal equinox, the March 21st, which was the period of the New Year's Day in the ancient calendars;
• the Bull;
• the Gemini;
• the Cancer is the sector where the Sun enters to the summer solstice, on June 21st, dates to which it culminates with the zenith of the tropic of Cancer;
• the Lion;
• the Virgin ;
• the Balance accommodates the Sun starting from the autumnal equinox, on September 21st;
• the Scorpion;
• the Sagittarius;
• the Capricorne is the sector where the Sun enters to the winter solstice, on December 22nd, dates to which it culminates with the zenith of the tropic of Capricorn;
• the Aquarius;
• the Poisson, which complete the cycle.

These signs are regular sectors of 30°, conventionally deducted starting from the vernal Point. They right from the start have only one remote relationship with the constellations of the same name, whose limits and positions are irregular. Moreover, this report/ratio constantly distended with the wire of time, because of Précession of the equinoxes. The signs of the zodiac should not thus be confused with the constellations of the same name.

During more than two millenia, the astronomers (and astrologers) thus located the movement of the celestial bodies not in degrees since the vernal point like nowadays, but in degree since the current sign. These two methods are of course equivalent: a planetary position with 17° of the Lion (the fifth sign) is with 4  ×  30  +  17  =  137° of the vernal point. This notation was given up by the astronomers with second half of the 19th century.

Signs and constellations of the zodiac

Here a table of the signs and Constellation S of the zodiac with the dates on which the sun is there. The two columns show well the difference between a sign and a constellation of the zodiac.

A person of our born time when the Sun is in the Constellation of the Balance will thus not be Signe of the Balance. The Précession of the equinoxes moved the point of reference of the zodiac tropic, the position of the Sun compared to stars at the time of the equinox of the spring, which is the starting point (beginning of the sign of the Ram).

The constellations are, they, of unequal sizes - an entirely sidereal astrology would thus see an immoderate proportion people born under the sign of the Virgin. Another question for sidereal astrology is to precisely locate the beginning of its zodiac. Constellations having only conventional limits (drawn in 1930), where to locate the limit enters the Ram and Poisson differently than by convention?

Zodiac and astrology

The signs of the zodiac are used in the Astrologie as space-time reference marks making it possible to establish the correspondences on which this practice rests. It uses for that the position of various objects in the zodiac. Inter alia: the Planet S, the Sun, the the Moon, and on the local plan: the horizon (the ascending being the point of the zodiac cut by the horizon is) and the meridian line (medium of the sky corresponding to the point of the zodiac cut by the zenith).

Sidereal astrology

The sidereal Astrologie, practiced primarily out of Occident (Chinese Astrologie and vedic astrology or jyotish), also divides the ecliptic into twelve zones of equal size, but it rather aligns the border of the astrological constellation of the Ram with a particular star than with the equinox of spring, with the result that the astrological signs are fixed with the same precession as the constellations.

The shift between the signs and the constellations is nowadays (in 2004) about 25° approximately according to the measurement of the Ayanamsa by the Hindu astrologers .

Chinese and Indian astrologies have a clean tradition to indicate the signs, whose list does not have a bond with the traditional signs of the zodiac.

In spite of this fundamental divergence, the astrological fashion recently saw appearing in Occident a sidereal astrology founded on the traditional constellations, created of all parts, but which receives some echoes in the field of the popular Astrologie.

Influence symbolic system zodiacale

This symbolic system frequently and was largely used since the time gréco-Roman until our days.

For example in the Christianity, Jesus de Nazareth, is surrounded by twelve Apôtre S. In certain representations of the Romance France , one sees Christ illuminant of her aureole, a such sun, surrounded by twelve animals representing its apostles.

There is also the traditional association of the four evangelists to the four fixed signs: Luc and the Bull, Marc and the Lion, Jean and the Scorpion (represented in the shape transfigured of the eagle) and Matthieu and Aquarius (in the form of the angel).