Astronomy

yeatsvision.com /astronomy.html

This page examines the astronomical background to the various cycles relevant to Yeatss A Vision, particularly the precession of the
equinoxes and some of the Moons cycles.

The Great Year and the Precession of the Equinoxes

The whole concept of the Great Year is based upon a genuine astronomical phenomenon. The Earths axis is not fixed and
includes a slight wobble, properly called nutation, usually compared to that of a spinning-top when it is slowing down. This
means that the poles describe circles, and that the North Pole does not always point to the same star or even any star. Currently
Polaris, the Pole Star, appears to be very close to the Celestial North Pole, but some four thousand years ago Thuban in Draco
was nearer, and in another twelve thousand years Vega in Lyra will be nearer.

The path of the Northern Celestial Pole The path of the Southern Celestial Pole

The Celestial Poles are projections of the Earths poles into the sky. The star closest to the poles varies with the Earths nutation: Polaris is
currently the Northern Pole Star and there is no star close to the Southern Pole. The circles described by the Earths and the Celestial poles
are centred on the Ecliptic poles, the Northern one situated in Draco and the Southern one in Doradus.
Another site gives a clear astronomical explanation and Keith Powell's site has Java Applet of an Astrolabe which can be used to show the
effects of precession (by advancing the centuries, the shifting of the stars with relation to the pole, shown by the cross hairs, is perceptible, as
is the movement of the Zodiacal stars, for example Regulus or Aldebaran, with respect to the tropical Zodiac, shown by the red circle).

Accompanying this polar symptom of the phenomenon, is the equatorial symptom, the Precession of the Equinoxes, reputedly first noted by
Hipparchus (ca.190 BCE-125 BCE). The equinoxes are determined by the apparent passage of the Sun over the equator (corresponding with
the moment in the Earths orbit when its axis is a tangent to the ellipse of the orbit) and this happens when the Earth-Sun system is at the
same point in its cycle. The Sun therefore appears to be at the same position relative to the starry background each year. However, this
shifts very gradually, by 50.26" a year, or roughly 1 every seventy years. Since the Sun and Full Moon appear to be about half a degree
across their diameter, this shift is just perceptible within a life-time (=30'=1800"). Hipparchus used his own observations and those of the
previous 150 years to calculate the length of the tropical or solar year at 365.242 days (modern calculations give a mean length 365.242199;
these are the figures given by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, others vary, and because the Earths speed varies, different figures arise for
different reference points).

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The point taken for measurement of the precession is usually the Vernal Equinox, which in our calendar takes place in March, and which is
called the First Point of Aries, since the Equinox occurred when the Sun was in Aries when the terms were defined. This point is not arbitrary,
representing one of two points where the ecliptic, the Suns apparent path or the plane of the Earths path round the Sun, crosses the Earths
equator. The First Point of Aries marks the apparent passage of the Sun northwards over the equator and its counterpart, the First Point of
Libra, marks its passage southwards. What is arbitrary is that this point is taken astronomically as 0 in terms of Right Ascension . The First
Point of Aries is not, however, fixed: in the 2000 years leading up to the start of the Christian era, the apparent position of the Sun at the
moment of the Vernal Equinox was in the constellation of Aries; it lay on the boundary between Aries and Pisces at the beginning of the
Christian era, and has since then been shifting through Pisces and is approaching Aquarius (see Great Year).

Yeats himself gives quite a full treatment of the phenomenon of precession in the context of the Great Year, and uses the slippage of the
Vernal Equinox backward through the constellations as the great chronocrator of the gyres cycles (AV B 252-5; AV A 149-58). As Yeats
identifies, the astronomical measurement of the time taken for a complete circle of the equinoxs progress against the stars and the changing
of pole-stars is just under 26,000 years (25,786).

The historical equinoctial point, with particular reference to the Temple of Amon-Ra; from E. M. Plunket, Ancient Calendars and
Constellations, one of the books that Yeats consulted for A Vision.

To the astronomer, for whom the constellations and Zodiac are conveniences and purely geocentric illusions, this cycle is merely one of
many, and, though it must be taken into account, it has no particular significance. To the astrologer, for whom the constellations, particularly
those of the Zodiac, have meaning and influence, the phenomenon takes on other dimensions. One of these is that the passage of the Sun
backwards through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, is a kind of year, and since each sign measures a month of the Sun's annual motion, the
Suns precessional passage through one sign is a kind of month too, albeit some 2,150 years long. Since each sign is supposed to colour the
way in which the Sun operates during the year, it follows that the Suns precessional passage through a sign will also be coloured by that
sign. See the Astrological Great Year.

A further consequence for astrology is that there are now two Zodiacs in use, that based on the stars and that based on Earths seasons. The
first, called the sidereal Zodiac (Latin: sidera, stars), is used in India for example, and corresponds largely with the constellations, though
the divisions are regularised to 30 each; the second Zodiac is called tropical (Greek: tropoi, the turning-points of the Sun), the most widely
used one in the West, and the signs of the Zodiac are defined by the position of the Sun at the equinoxes and solstices, which are the starts
of the four cardinal signs: Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. The difference between these two Zodiacs is the effect of the precession
(though the exact boundaries and date of coincidence are disputed), so that tropical Aries now starts at the same point as sidereal Pisces,
and at midsummer, when the Sun is entering tropical Cancer, it is at the beginning of the constellation of Gemini. See the Astrological Zodiac.

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 The Phases of the Moon and Eclipses, Andreas Cellarius, Atlas Coelestis (Amsterdam, 1660).

The Lunar Cycle

The Moon measures two separate kinds of month in its orbit around the Earth. The independent sidereal month marks the return of the
Moon to the same point in the sky reckoned by its position against the background of the stars (or, confusingly perhaps, with respect to the
equinoctial points of the tropical system). The synodic month marks the return of the Moon to the same phase in the lunation cycle,
usually New Moon to New Moon (Greek: synodos, meeting, conjunction). The apparent motion of the Moon taken on its own against the
stars is relatively simple; in contrast the phases trace the relationship between moving bodies, the Moon and Sun, as seen from a Earth, so
that when the same phase or relative position recurs their absolute sidereal positions are completely different, and the cycle is greater than
a circle.

The Moon appears to move about 13 per day, though the distance varies from less than 12 to more than 15, so that, if a reference point is
taken with respect to the stars, the Moon returns to the same point in a mean time of 27.32 days. Based on this sidereal cycle, divisions of
the circle into 27 or 28 have been used in various forms of astrology in China, India and Arabia. These are the lunar equivalent of the signs
of the Zodiac and are generally known in European tradition through the Arabian system of the manzil al-qumar, the resting-places of the
Moon, usually translated via Latin as Mansions or Stations. (For more details, see the Mansions of the Moon.)

The Sun appears to move about 1 per day, in the same direction as the Moon, and in the opposite direction to its movement across the sky
during the day. If one takes the star which is hidden by the New Moon as a reference point, when the Moon reaches the same star after
27.32 days, the Sun has moved some 27 degrees further on. After slightly more than two days the Moon makes up the difference, so that the
synodic cycle is an average of 29.53059 days long (Hipparchus reached a figure of 29.53058). Most astrological uses of this cycle tend,
therefore, to take the period as 29 or 30 days, usually 29. Examples include, for instance, Thomas Goodes popular booklet The Gipsy
Fortune Teller, which gives Judgements for the 29 Days of the Moon by W. Parker, Professor of Astrology, and Albert Raphael, writing in
1901, used 29 days as well in his Prognostication from the Moons Age. More symbolically, Eliphas Lvis The Magical Ritual of the
Sanctum Regnum Interpreted by the Tarot Trumps (translated by William Wynn Westcott) gives 29 days of the Moon corresponding to the
twenty-two Tarot Trumps and the seven planets of the ancients.

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Although it has no direct relevance here, the Moons rotation period is exactly the same as its sidereal cycle, and it is because of this that

Athanasius Kircher, Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae (Rome: Scheus, 1646):

The Selenic Shadowdial or the Process of the Lunation.
The spirals show the length of the Moons appearance in the sky, with its rising and setting. The scheme gives the Moon twenty-eight
phases and the engraver, Pierre Miotte, has reversed the appearance of the waxing and waning moons for the northern hemisphere.

one side of its surface is always hidden from Earth. In fact, only 41% is visible during any one lunar cycle, but wobbles, called librations,
mean that 59% of the surface is visible over time.

Although there are twenty-nine or thirty (solar) days of the Moon, there is no fixed number for the phases of the Moon. There is a continuous
change and cycle, and the most general division of that cycle is into eight: new, crescent, half, gibbous, full, waning gibbous, waning half,
decrescent. Andreas Cellarius, however, in his Atlas Coelestis of 1660, gives 36 separate phases (see above). Obviously a natural division
between the phases is the Moons appearance on subsequent days, though it appears for different lengths of time and at different times of
day or night, so that 24 hours is not always the most natural interval.

A more logical reference point, perhaps, is the lunar equivalent of noon, its southing or culmination, even though the Moon is not always
visible because of the Suns brightness. Because of its movement, the Moon souths 53 minutes later each day on average, so that noon to
noon is on average 24.83 hours, which divided into the length of the synodic month (708.7 hours), gives 28.5, which is not so far from
Yeatss number.

The reason for choosing the Moons southing rather than moonrise or moonset, is that like sunrise and sunset these vary with the Moons
position in the Zodiac, although, over the course of the month, they average the same length of lunar day. But averages are not real except
in equatorial latitudes. In more extreme latitudes the difference depends on the Moons longitude, its apparent position in the Zodiac, in
exactly the same way that the Suns path varies with the time of the year (and even with respect to the Sun, there are further complications
produced by the Earths tilt and elliptical orbit, see Analemma.com, so that the earliest sunrise is not on the longest day etc., explained on
Analemmas page about "Other Phenomena"). The constellation of Gemini is always above the horizon for some 17 hours in Dublin
(5320'N), so that when the Suns position is aligned with Gemini, during June, the day lasts for 17 hours (and Gemini itself is invisible); the
constellation of Sagittarius, in contrast, is only ever above the horizon in Dublin for some 7 hours, so that when the Sun is aligned with
Sagittarius, in December, the day lasts for 7 hours. The same is true of the Moon, but its cycle is that of the sidereal month rather than the
year. The new Moon is, of course, exactly the same as the Sun, but the full Moon is its complementary opposite. The full Moon of midwinter
(December in northern latitudes), when the Moon is opposite to the Sun, will therefore be above the horizon for as long as the Sun at
midsummer; and the full Moon of midsummer will be above the horizon for as long as the Sun at midwinter. The points of relative equality,
therefore, are the full Moons in March and September, the months of the equinoxes, when the Sun and Moon are in the constellations of
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Pisces and Virgo.

The Full Moon in March, however, rises more slowly than the Full
Moon in September, for those in the northern hemisphere. This is
linked to the length of time which it takes various points of the
ecliptic, and therefore also the constellations or signs of the Zodiac,
to rise. Although they are all thirty degrees long, the signs of the
Zodiac (either tropical or sidereal) rise over the horizon at different
speeds, with the range of difference becoming progressively more
extreme as one moves away from the equator, and more extreme at
the equinoctial points than the solstitial. Taking the tropical signs
used by western astrology, in the northern hemisphere the signs of
Pisces and Aries rise in considerably less time than Virgo and Libra
(in the sidereal Zodiac these are shifted to Aquarius and Pisces, Leo
and Virgo). In Dublin, for instance, Aries rises in less than 50
minutes, while Libra rises in some 2 hours and 55 minutes. The so-
called signs of long ascension in the tropical Zodiac are Cancer,
Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius, while those of short
ascension are Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus and
Gemini. In the southern hemisphere, the situation is reversed. As a
consequence of this phenomenon, the Full Moon in March, which will
be in the tropical sign of Virgo, if it comes before the equinox, or
Libra, if it comes after, and will rise slowly over the eastern horizon.

The Moons position around the Zodiac, as the Moons seasons:

Ver, Spring, from Aries to Gemini (A to B); Aestas, Summer, from
Cancer to Virgo (B to C); Autumnus, Autumn or Fall, from Libra to
Sagittarius (C to D); Hyems, Winter, from Capricorn to Pisces (D to
A). The diagram includes the inevitable mistake of making the
phases coincide with the Zodiac, though it counts thirty days for the
cycle.
From Athanasius Kirchers Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae (1646).

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 Draconic, Saronic and Metonic Cycles
The Moons behaviour is extremely complex, but other elements in the Moons behaviour which are relevant here are the Draconic, Saronic
and Metonic cycles, which are largely concerned with longer periods.

The Draconic cycle is linked with the paths of the Moon and Sun, and the two points where the Moons path crosses the apparent path of the
Sun, the ecliptic, which are called the Moons Nodes (the Moons orbit is tilted at an average of 5 with respect to the ecliptic). The point
where the Moon goes from south of the ecliptic to north of the ecliptic is called the Ascending or North Node and the opposite point the
Descending or South Node, these are traditionally the Dragons Head and the Dragons Tail, respectively, and from this Dragon comes the
adjective draconic. The ecliptic owes its name to the fact that an eclipse of the Sun or Moon can only happen when the Moon is at these
points, where the two bodies coincide, since otherwise, although the Sun and Moon are in conjunction at the New Moon or opposition at the
Full Moon, the Moons path is above or below that of the Sun, so that the bodies or the Earths shadow do not coincide. The lunar Nodes are
usually imaginary points formed by the planes of the two orbits (except for the moment when the Moon is actually at one of them), and appear
to go backwards through the Zodiac, so that a Draconic month (27.21 days) is slightly shorter than the Moons Sidereal Month (27.32 days),
and the Nodes complete a cycle around the Zodiac in 6793.4 days (18.6 years), the Draconic cycle. (For further information, see an article by
Dwight Ennis, an astrologer, on the astronomy of the Lunar Nodes.) In Indian astrology, Jyotish, the Dragons Head (Rahu) and Tail (Ketu)
are accorded almost equal status with the planets.

The Dragon of the Lunar Nodes and the Eclipse Points, from Kircher's Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae

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When the Draconic months are taken together with the months of the New Moons (the Synodic months, 29.53 days), and the months of the
Moons farthest distance from the Earth or perigee (the Anomalistic months, 27.55 days), they all reach a whole number of cycles (or almost)
in 6585.32 days, just over 18 years, which is called the Saronic cycle (see NASAs site for more). Within the Saronic cycle sequences of
eclipses repeat themselves, since the Sun, Moon and Earth return to almost the same relative positions. In consecutive cycles the later
eclipse occurs at roughly the same latitude and for the same duration but about 8 hours later and 115 of longitude further west. The word is
a Greek form of a Babylonian word shr or shru which may mean universe or the number 3,600. Each saros contains about 43 solar and
28 lunar eclipses, and the slight element of difference in the bodies positions accumulates so that an eclipse cycle ends after a number of
saroses, 71 saroses for solar and 48 for lunar eclipses (see also WordIQs site on the Eclipse Cycle.

Within the Metonic cycle of 19 years the lunar calendar of synodic months reaches a form of accord with the solar calendar, so that the
phases of the Moon occur on the same days of the solar year, though there is a slight difference and therefore a gradual accumulation of
error. Devised by Meton of Athens ca. 432 BCE, the cycles application is mainly in calendar-making and is numerical rather than truly
astronomical, representing the point where the two cycles both complete a whole number of cycles, or almost: modern observation shows
that 19 solar years are 6939.6 days and 235 lunations are 6939.69 days. The cycle, for instance, determines the Jewish calendar, where
seven intercalary months (First Adar) are added during each period of nineteen years in order to keep the lunar calendar in line with the
seasons (19 x 12 = 228 and 228 + 7 = 235). It enters the Christian calendar in the date of Easter, and the so-called golden number of the
year: if the new Moon falls on 1st January, the years number is 1, and so on.

It is as though innumerable dials, some that recorded minutes alone, some seconds alone, some hours alone, some months alone, some
years alone, were all to complete their circles when Big Ben struck twelve upon the last night of the century. My instructors offer for a
symbol the lesser unities that combine into a work of art and leave no remainder, but we may substitue if we will the lesser movements
which combine into the circle that in Hegels Logic unites not summer solstice to summer solstice but absolute to absolute. The Months
and Years are also numbered, but they are not perfect numbers but parts of other numbers. The time of the development of the universe is
perfect, for it is a part of nothing, it is a whole and for that reason resembles eternity. It is before all else an integrity, but only eternity
confers upon existence that complete integrity which remains in itself; that of time develops, development is indeed a temporal image of
that which remains in itself. (AV B 248-49)

Text and original images copyright Neil Mann.

last revised: 18/07/04

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