05-12-2017, 09:08 AM
Of course, there is much more to be said about this.
First of all, when seeing the illustrations of the zodiac signs, one should not think in terms of constellations but in signs. The two became completely detached from each other due to the effect of precession. Constellations have irregular forms, some are large and some are small.
The zodiac signs were used for the computation of celestial events, and in fact for star coordinates. Each zodiac sign covers a region of 30 degrees on the celestial great circle that is the ecliptic. This is essentially the path of the Sun plotted against the sky.
Nowadays, star coordinates are expressed with respect to the celestial equator, using two angles called Right Ascension and Declination. In Ptolemy's star catalogue they are expressed with respect to the ecliptic, using two other angles, namely longitude and latitude.
Longitude is measured along the ecliptic, and latitude away from it.
The advantage of this system is that, at least to the accuracy in ancients times, precession only affected the stellar longitudes, as a linear function of time. All old astronomical tables were recomputed for different epochs using this principle.
The longitude is expressed using two quantities, namely:
1) the corresponding zodiac sign
2) the degrees within this sign, from 0 to 30.
Thus, the first stars in Ptolemy's catalogue, belonging to the little dipper, have longitudes expressed as:
Gemini 2, Cancer 25 etc.
It is possible that the meaning of the zodiac section in the Voynich MS is intending to represent a calendar, but we don't know.
It is possible that it represents some horoscope-related information, but we equally don't know.
It is finally possible that it represents astronomical information, but again we don't know.
All we know for certain is that there are the illustrations of the zodiac signs.
First of all, when seeing the illustrations of the zodiac signs, one should not think in terms of constellations but in signs. The two became completely detached from each other due to the effect of precession. Constellations have irregular forms, some are large and some are small.
The zodiac signs were used for the computation of celestial events, and in fact for star coordinates. Each zodiac sign covers a region of 30 degrees on the celestial great circle that is the ecliptic. This is essentially the path of the Sun plotted against the sky.
Nowadays, star coordinates are expressed with respect to the celestial equator, using two angles called Right Ascension and Declination. In Ptolemy's star catalogue they are expressed with respect to the ecliptic, using two other angles, namely longitude and latitude.
Longitude is measured along the ecliptic, and latitude away from it.
The advantage of this system is that, at least to the accuracy in ancients times, precession only affected the stellar longitudes, as a linear function of time. All old astronomical tables were recomputed for different epochs using this principle.
The longitude is expressed using two quantities, namely:
1) the corresponding zodiac sign
2) the degrees within this sign, from 0 to 30.
Thus, the first stars in Ptolemy's catalogue, belonging to the little dipper, have longitudes expressed as:
Gemini 2, Cancer 25 etc.
It is possible that the meaning of the zodiac section in the Voynich MS is intending to represent a calendar, but we don't know.
It is possible that it represents some horoscope-related information, but we equally don't know.
It is finally possible that it represents astronomical information, but again we don't know.
All we know for certain is that there are the illustrations of the zodiac signs.