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johnfosteruk

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Doesn't particularly bother me. If visitors bring up the subject either out of interest or just mistaking the word I just tell them that astronomy has its roots in astrology but we have now moved on to what I next show them. What gets my goat is when, even on this forum, folk refer to the non constellation of "Scorpio" :icon_biggrin:

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Was it astronomers or astrologers who named the constellations for animals and objects and worked them all out.  I'm guessing it might have been astrologers who, before science explained things,  looked for mythological reasons as to why things worked.  Whoever sorted out all the constellation names certainly helped the organisation of modern astronomy as at least we all have a common reference of names for certain star groups, that, in many cases, is understood worldwide.  

From an astronomy viewpoint I must admit I was astonished (and as a beginner myself) at how many people posted that they could only see the plastic vanes in their telescope tube.  Does this happen every Christmas?

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By all accounts Galileo turned out a pretty mean horoscope. Kepler too, as part of his official duties, although he was considerably less enthusiastic.

When I worked for a small English-language newspaper in Santiago, I too had to write the weekly horoscope. Believe me, there was absolutely no astrology involved! Eventually I was removed from my position of oracle, and couldn't have been happier - in fact, it was about the only thing I saw coming :icon_biggrin:.

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16 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

I dont have a problem with astrology without it we would have never studied the universe.

Alan

Dont want to hijack the thread but i really cant agree with this. I think humans were always going to want to study the universe and indeed were doing so long before the creation of any form of astrology. It was simply in an attempt to explain their observations in the face of a complete lack of scientific reasoning that astrology came about. Not saying it was the ancients fault but with lack of any scientific reasoning they simply made up a load of stuff as a explanation and gave visible objects names which served as a map. Once a map was in place it didnt take to long to figure that objects could be tracked and used to align to many events that occur annually on Earth and hey presto "predictions". In terms of the value it has had on todays modern astronomy i can see very little. Constellations and names are of little relevance to the modern professional astronomers and are simply a convenient marker and vocal point of reference. 

In regards to what the ancient civilisations legacy of astrology well as mentioned dont think much is known about the Hengers level of expertise except a few somewhat dubious beliefs. Also not much from the Egyptians either, although they are regarded as highly proficient in "astronomy" all we really have from them are reliefs and a few mentions in scripts, we dont even know what names they used for the vast majority of objects. Although many of the nights sky delights are named in Arabic these are names that date from a much later period in the middle eastern chapter of space exploration. It wasnt really until the Greeks and then later as mentioned the Great Islamic period of learning that the legacy starts to produce anything that approaches scientific method and therefore of some use to todays astronomy.

So from my point of view im pretty sure study of the Universe led to Astrology rather than Astrology leading to study of the Universe.

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I def. think the question of 'what came first (the chicken or the egg)' is interesting does astronomy owe astrology or vice versa.  Even Astrology has some knowledge of the relative positions of the celestial objects and uses prediction of their position in their suppositions - it is therefore interesting to consider why this knowledge first came about.   The Wikipedia entry on the subject is worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology_and_astronomy

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Okay - I'm a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know.

Yes - it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun's apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.

Participate-in-the-what?

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To quote someone on an astro forum a few weeks ago:

"I don't believe in astrology. I'm Sagittarius, and, as you know,  all Sagittarians are sceptical people".

Could, given  as an answer, cause some mental confusion....

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2 minutes ago, JOC said:

The thing is if you are talking about the movement of the various constellations are you referring to astronomical or astrological objects in the sky?

Depends on context, the OED (The law as far as I'm concerned) says astrology is 'the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies interpreted as having an influence on human affairs and the natural world'

So if your question is just the movement of..... then it's astronomy, if your question is the movement of.....interpreted as having an influence.... it's nonsense astrology.

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23 minutes ago, JOC said:

 the movement of the various constellations

Evenin'all.

I may be wrong cos I've not studied astrology ( ! surprise) but I dont think the constellations move ? I think it is the coordinate system ( as us astronomers call it ) that has moved due to the precession of the equinox(s) The first point of Aries ( where the assending node is * ) is still in Aries for the 'ologers where it was millenia ago. But for 'onomers it has moved quite a long way, when I started the coordinate system was temporarily fixed at 1950 and was then moved to 2000. We like to stay up to date :)

I think it is the planets that move, well my planets do the moving, not sure about theirs ??

* where the ecliptic crosses the equator

 

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Grrrr......The one thing about forums is you can easily be overthrown by a pedantic response.  OK, I concur - it IS the planets that move.  OK, I'll re-phrase the question and refer to the apparent movement of the constellations that is observed in the sky as our planet rotates.  How do we refer to these collections of objects!

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5 minutes ago, JOC said:

Grrrr......The one thing about forums is you can easily be overthrown by a pedantic response.

Grrr ,,, pedantic ! Charmed I'm sure !! :D I would call it being scientifically precise.

anyway, I was typing that whilst preparing my curry, now it is getting cold, which will not be permitted >>>

 

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37 minutes ago, johnfosteruk said:

Depends on context, the OED (The law as far as I'm concerned) says astrology is 'the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies interpreted as having an influence on human affairs and the natural world'

So if your question is just the movement of..... then it's astronomy, if your question is the movement of.....interpreted as having an influence.... it's nonsense astrology.

Out of curiosity, what is the OED definition for astronomy?

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10 minutes ago, JOC said:

SilverAstro :icon_biggrin: Are you sure its a curry and not a spicy stew? ;-)

Quite sure, it has its parentage in the Raj and I believe in using the vernacular :angel9:

The other thing I could have called the previous would have been 'conversational' perhaps ? And some may even have determined a deliberate attempt to mock the afflicted ( the 'ologers I mean, not you, before I get into more bovver :) )

Possibly even seeking after knowlege, on the basis that ( "I may be wrong" ) it is said that the quickest way of getting the right answer is to post a wron'un on 'tinterweb :happy7:and since no one has corrected me , , , , >>

 

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SilverAstro - no probs. here, I knew that you knew what I meant, and I knew you were only joshing (or should than be roganjoshing?) for sheer joy of being in a position to do so.  I should have watched how I phrased things given the company I should have expected to be keeping in an astronomy forum.  In your position on a forum on a familiar subject - yeah, I'd have done the same without hesitation LOL

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My daughter's Goat got me when I was on nanny duties. I kid you not........

(the darned thing never stopped growing until it was the size of a small horse, with horns, and talk about bad tempered, charged at anything in sight)

Does that count?

PS round here I am called an Astronome. ;)

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18 minutes ago, cloudsweeper said:

My goat gets got (have I really said that?) when it's suggested that I'm aiming at bedroom windows!

Doug.

That's easy to debunk, show them the Moon and then point the telescope towards a bedroom window without refocusing and let them have a look. 

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2 minutes ago, JOC said:

 no probs.

roganjoshing?

None at all, most enjoyable.

heheee, nice one !

Now, for @Alien 13 and  @symesie04 we must return to -> did  the 'ology lead to the 'onomy, well ( in my opinion ! ) it did and it didnt (howzat?!) Tycho and others previous made their observations to better their 'ology prognostications, but then  without which Kepler would have been up a creek with a heck lot more work to do and Copernicus wouldnt have been so easily able to justify the ancient Greeks (nor get into so much trouble with you-know-who). But a great leap forward was serendipitous, not fostered by 'ology, by the dutch lens makers, Galileo chanced upon it and thought 'that's interesting'. And the rest is history in northern western culture.

The Chinese however had 'ology for yonks ( masses of guest stars, comets, eclipses and dragons) all in the service of fortelling for their overlords and never as a result of it, got round to the 'onomy :( , until recently.

 

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34 minutes ago, bejay1957 said:

Out of curiosity, what is the OED definition for astronomy?

The branch of science which deals with celestial objects, space, and the physical universe as a whole. 

The term 'branch of science' I think makes it mutually exclusive from the 'ology

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