Earth Passes between Saturn and Sun

The Earth passed between Saturn and the Sun yesterday, and today my son came home with a 1969 volkswagon and took me for a ride.  I love his dad, even though I don’t want to live with him, I love him for getting me pregnant and everything else he did to influence our son.  I was so scared, many months ago, when our 20 year old said he wanted to spend $2000 on an old beetle that his boss at the mechanic shop where he works offered to sell him.  He already spends constantly on his 1972 Ford pickup and it sounded like it could be another money pit.  But now that I have had a ride I am so excited. 

What a great way to celebrate the passage between Saturn and the Sun!

The Earth is in the middle in astrology charts.  Here is a screenshot from theplanetstoday.com:

 You can see Mercury about to overtake Earth on the inner track. 

Meanwhile the Sun is catching up to Mars.  They will meet in about 3 weeks (Sun June14).   They line up about every 25 months, last time was in Aries.  The earthly event associated with that planetary meetup between Sun (ego/spirit) and Mars was the bomb set off by two brothers at the end of the Boston Marathon.  This year when the meeting takes place just about everything will fall under the control of Mercury in Gemini.  Mercury will be lingering, after turning direct, in the tender Cancer duad of Gemini, so it will be a real magician, playing tricks but the kind that nurture and promote growth.  I’m always inspired by magicians that entertain by showing us our own lack of awareness.  The magicians I like best gently show us that there is much more going on around us than what we catch.  

First the chart for June 14 shows Sun 1 minute ahead of Mars.  Then in theplanetstoday.com screenshot you can see what's really happening; Earth is swinging around the far side of the Sun from Mars so we see them lined up.  By August Mars will be visible in eastern sky right before sunrise. 

Virtual Mars on the far side from Earth of virtual Sun.  

I can't believe there will now be a Volkswagon Beetle in my life!  And I don't have to pay the repair bills, just hop in and get taken for a ride!  This brings back the best memories of driving to the mountains with Charlotte so many years ago in her trusty bug.  Same smell, same sound.  

I've been really distracted lately and wishing I could get back to conversing with people in the Astrodienst forum.  Maybe by the time Mercury finishes its fly by with Earth I will have had enough distraction to write some inspired posts.  One new forum friend is allowing me to use her chart as a sample chart on my new Biznus page.

I have to say the distractions are getting better every day.  I have moved from a book on the archeoastronomy of the ancient Mesoamerican calendar to watching videos of people in Michoacan reciting poetry in Purepecha.  Very cool distractions.  There have been others.  I made a page about the Moon's nodes and decided that the rant about Faustus and Augustine was too tangential, so I took it down.  Before that I started a post about Formalhaut.  I'm trying to get acquainted with neighboring stars, and Formalhaut is interesting because Wikipedia has an image showing its dust ring.  But I ended up writing about the zodiac again.  It's like a bug buzzing right next to the ear.  But it's a good bug, and by June 14 Mercury in the Cancer duad of Gemini should be sweet while the Sun lines up with Mars in the Pisces duad of Tricky Gemini.  

Beautiful Venus and New Moon in Cancer

I was trying to get to a post about Formalhaut but this evening's setting of the new Moon and Venus in Cancer is so pretty I had to post a map and virtual snap shots for tonight and tomorrow.  I think tomorrow’s setting will be just as pretty.  Here is a chart for tonight, then a Stellarium screen shot for almost 10:00pm.  If you get out there by 9:00pm you should be able to see both of them.

The same view on Stellarium: 

Map for tomorrow night:

Stellarium screen shot for tomorrow night:

 When you put the ecliptic and celestial equator up it is easy to tell where Cancer is, the part where the ecliptic is way above the celestial equator. 

Celebrity in the Neighborhood

This isn’t exactly astrology, I mean we’re not gonna follow this stellar object of interest around and watch what it does from one day to the next.  We’re just gonna make introductions and get a little how do you do, where do you hang out, how fast do you usually go kind of stuff.

I was on Stellarium looking at a  winter night sky, which means Gemini and Cancer are up all night long, which means a look toward the outside of the Milky Way instead of navel gazing.  I’ve been having a hard time picturing Earth’s motions around the Sun within the vast context of the Milky Way, much less neighboring galaxies.  Part of the problem is not knowing individual stars.  I’m having to wade through sporadic forays into lakes of text and images, almost all various colored dots on a jet black background, with tiny labels that are next to impossible to make out.  But today I clicked through the stars in Orion, knowing finally well and good, that anything in Orion faces the direction of escape from the Milky Way.  Not that I feel imprisoned, exactly; I guess it is more like the big bay window in the living room that the kids gaze out of at the beginning of The Cat in the Hat.

All the stars I clicked on were at least 100light years away, some of them over a 1000ly distant.  I’m talking about the stars in the constellation Orion which is kind of under the part of the ecliptic reaching the highest point in it’s ascent over the celestial equator, Gemini.  There’s a meaningless mouthful.  It meant something in my mind.  Let’s try an image from Stellarium.

 That's what I was looking at.  Now here is an image that might explain what I meant when I talked about the part of the ecliptic reaching it's highest rise above the equator (celestial that is).  

My apologies for sloppy blogging.  I hope those margins showing through the dark sky are not making the images unintelligible.  I did not even include any helpful directional marks.  Nothing up there but Betelgeuse under the highest part of the red umbrella.  The planets, like the Moon for instance, go from left to right along that red line.  Here are a few screen shots showing the Moon from one day to the next.  This one below is for the same hour and minute of the first chart, just one day later. 

Now the next day....

The 2nd chart from the top can get you confused.  So far we've got 3 charts for the same hour on successive days.  You can see how far the Moon has gone in 3 days.  Here is the 4th....

I should have made a video.  This post was supposed to be about Formalhaut but once again I am beating my ancient drum about the meaning behind those cute and not so cute critters in the zodiac.  Here is day 5, movement of the Moon as it approaches it's.....next.....um ... destination.

People that do stupid stuff like post a string of screenshots from Stellarium are called boring, or Taurus.  I have been called immature, in the 3rd person, by a respected poet.  That person was really immature.  I had stuff written all over the walls of my old apartment.  Dumb stuff.  I don't like embarrassing myself, but these phases must be passed through....6th day...

Does anyone see anything happening?  Does anyone care?  This isn't exactly front page news here.  Formalhaut is more interesting.  There are collisions out the behind there!  But I've taken all these screen shots of the Moon's movement from one day to the next so you will just have to scroll through them.  There are 3 more...here is day 7:

Lets skip a couple of days and see the Moon after it has passed from Gemini into Cancer and, at the same time, over Betelgeuse.

Ok, last one and then I will go to work like a good girl.  This is for almost 5 hours later, when the Moon in Cancer is at the top of the sky.  Maybe tonight I can get to what I was about to say about neighbor Formalhaut.  Put you to sleep real good.

You might wonder why the Sun is no where in sight for sky charts that say 7:45am and 12:35pm.  Well, I'll tell you.  I don't know how to set the Stellarium clock for different locations on the globe.  It always is set on Atlantic Coast time which is centered at 75W longitude.  The sky shots in this post are for Durgapur in Bengal, India which is on Indian time around 90E longitude.   Stellarium time lag is kind of like jet lag.