Astronomy

• March 16, 2025Arabic, Astronomy, C-Entries, Glossary

  Cauda Draconis

  The Dragon’s Tail. v. Moon’s Node. DeVore, Nicholas. Encyclopedia of Astrology. New York: Philosophical Library, 1947.

• March 16, 2025Astronomy, C-Entries, Delineation, Glossary

  Cazimi

  An Arabian astronomical term applied to the center of the Solar disc. It is employed to describe a planet located within an arc of seventeen minutes (17′) of the Sun’s […]

• March 16, 2025Astronomy, C-Entries, Glossary

  Celestial Sphere

  If one pictures the sphere we call the Earth, enlarged to embrace the visible heavens, the resulting concept can be called the celestial sphere. If it is a true sphere, […]

• February 15, 2025Astronomy, B-Entries, Glossary

  Belts of Jupiter

  A varying number of dusky belt-like bands or zones encircling the planet  Jupiter, parallel to its equator. It suggests the existence of an atmosphere, the clouds forced into  a series […]

• February 15, 2025Astronomy, B-Entries, Glossary, Occultism

  Babel, Tower of.

  A temple dedicated to the study of the planets, which were supposed todivulge the secrets of life and guide human destiny DeVore, Nicholas. Encyclopedia of Astrology. New York: Philosophical Library, […]

• January 4, 2025Astronomy, Glossary

  Azimuth

  A point of the horizon and a circle extending to it from the zenith; or an arc of the horizon measured clockwise between the south-point of the horizon and a vertical circle passing through the center of any object

• January 4, 2025Astronomy, Glossary

  Axial Rotation

  The diurnal motion of the Earth around its axis; also similar motion on the part of any other celestial body. v. Solar System. 

• January 4, 2025A-Entries, Astronomy, Glossary

  Axis, Inclination of.

  The equators of rotating bodies appear never to parallel their orbits. Hence there is an inclination of the axis when considered in reference to the plane of the orbit. Within the solar system these inclinations arc, at this epoch, as follows: Mercury 72°, Venus 60°, the Earth 23½°, Mars 25°, Jupiter 3°, Saturn 26°, Uranus 102°, Neptune 155°, Pluto unknown. The inclination of the Sun's axis to the plane of the Earth's orbit is about 7°. Its inclination to the plane of its own orbit is unknown, because the Sun's orbit is itself unknown. It is claimed by some that there is an additional motion of the Earth's axis amounting to 50" a century, making an orbit of about 2½ million years, in the course of which the North Pole and the South Pole successively point to the Sun instead of as at present to the Pole Star. This theory is advanced by way of explanation for successive Ice Ages.

• January 4, 2025Astronomy, Glossary, Uncategorized

  Asteroids

  DeVore, Nicholas. Encyclopedia of Astrology. New York: Philosophical Library, 1947.

• January 4, 2025Astronomy, Glossary

  Astrolabe

  A mechanical device, predecessor to the sextant, whereby mariners determined the time of day by the Sun, of the night by the stars, and the height and depth of mountains and valleys. The astrolabe of Christopher Columbus was on display at the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial. The oldest known example, called "The Mathematical Jewel," is of Persian origin. It was made by Ahmad and Mahud, sons of Ibraham (q.v.) the Astrologer of Isfahan, and is in the Lewis Evans collection in the Old Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, England. The invention is attributed by some to Hipparchus (q.v.) but others credit it to the Arabs, some 400 years prior.