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If you are one of the millions of people who believe in their daily horoscope, or even if your are casually curious about it you’d have been hit with this news couple of weeks ago. For some true believers, this news has been heartbreaking to hear that the Sun was not even in the constellation that they thought their sign was when they were born. If you were wondering how this drastic change in the Sun signs came about, read on.
You need to get familiar with a few technical terms, in order to navigate. Now, first things first – Let’s see what a constellation is. Simplifying the definition given in the Wikipedia, I can say ” a constellation is a perceived pattern formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another.” It must have been the bright sky without today’s light pollution coupled with the good imagination of the people from ancient civilizations that gave rise to these constellations. Many of the constellations were named after different animals or characters from mythological stories. I suspect some of them were defined by people who really had some extra time at hand as well , because only a few constellations resemble the figure they were meant to represent! Here is the constellation of Scorpius, where it is indeed easy to imagine a celestial scorpion is shown below.
The Constellation of Scorpius – The bent tail almost comes to life!
The next important term that you need to understand is ecliptic. The ecliptic is the apparent path taken by the Sun on the celestial spher
e. If this definition sounds like Greek or Latin, the diagram on the side should help! The celestial sphere is the imaginary sphere around us. If you project the earth’s equator on to the celestial sphere, you get the celestial equator. Since the Earth’s axis is not perpendicular to the plane it revolves around the Sun, the path of the Sun on the celestial sphere is also at an angle to the celestial equator. This path is called the ecliptic. But how to observe the path of the Sun among the stars since no stars are visible when the Sun is around? By observing the eastern sky just before sunrise, and the western sky just after sunset, it was possible for ancient civilizations to maps the path of the Sum among stars. The ancient civilizations who defined these constellations also observed that this path passed primarily through 12 constellations, which they called the Zodiac. Each of the constellation in the zodiac was assumed to occupy 30 degrees of longitude on the celestial sphere – the amount of distance covered by the Sun in the sky in one month’s time. Since the Moon, and other planets also revolve around the Sun in almost the same plane as the Earth, they are also always seen in the vicinity of the zodiac for Earth based observers.
There are two points in the sky where the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator. These are the days when equinoxes occur. One is the vernal equinox at the beginning of spring (so called vernal equinox), and the other beginning of the fall (autumnal equinox). About 1500 years ago, the spring equinox coincided with the beginning of the 
constellation of Aries, and the Sun was at this position around the 14th of April each year. Due to the phenomenon called precession, the vernal equinox is moving slowly on the ecliptic and now actually occurs around the 20th of March each year. However, western astrology still considers the vernal equinox as the ‘First point of Aries’ even though, the constellation of Aries may be far from it.
Until 20th century, constellation borders stayed sort of amorphous. In 1925, the International Astronomical Association defined constellation borders assigning specific boundaries between all the constellations in the sky, and dividing all the area of the sky into 88 constellations. When this new sky map was created, the ecliptic actually passed though 13 constellations instead of 12. The Sun actually moves through the constellation of Ophiuchus, between Scorpius and Sagittarius.
In the map here, you can see that the ecliptic passes through Ophiuchus before going to Sagittarius. But all this change happened about 85 years ago. But then why is it making big news now?
It is just that a fact that was known to astronomers and for others interested in the sky, was brought out as ‘news’ 
! On January 15th 2011, when millions of people heard for the first time that the Sun goes through a 13th constellation, and when the exact times of the year during which the Sun is actually in a constellation were listed out by Minnesota Planetarium Society, hell broke lose for a lot of believers!
Now lets assess what is the impact of this on your life. There are two options for you. If you believe in western astrology, you can take the following stand to stop lot of heart ache - “According to western astrology, zodiac was divided the ecliptic into 12 equal parts. The first point of Aries has long since been disassociated with the constellation of Aries. So although I understand that the Sun was not even in the constellation of Leo when I was born, I am ready to believe I’ll have qualities of a Leo, because, well – astrology says so”. This is technically a correct argument. In summary, your sign did not change, based on the principles of astrology.
If you are a non-believer of astrology like I am, and don’t believe that the Sun or the Moon or any stars can predict your fortunes, then well and good! You don’t have to care a bit about any definition or redefinition of constellation boundaries. After reading this post, you can be happy about knowing one new fact about the sky, though 
-neelanjana
Picture source : Normally I make it a point to give proper credit to pictures that I use in the blog posts. Unfortunately this time, I regret not saving that information, and not providing it in the post
p.s: This is a slightly modified version of the speech I gave today at my Toastmasters club. This was a project from the Advanced TM Manual – Speaking to Inform.
Note: This is an article I wrote for kids (6 to 12 years) for a newsletter. Now that the news of ‘Ophiuchus’ being the 13th constellation of the Zodiac is public, I thought there might be some interest in stars and constellations among adults too!
Have you ever tried going to a dark spot away from city lights looking at the sky from there? You’ll be amazed at the range of colors and brightness variations of stars in the night sky. Can you guess the number of stars you can see in a very dark sky? Would you think you can see millions of stars? No! At the most you can see about six thousand stars in the sky. That means you probably can’t see more than three thousand stars at any given time. Strange, but true!
Ursa Major constellation, or “Big Dipper”. In India it is called Saptarshi Mandala. The stars Merak & Dubhe (Indian names: Pulaha and Krtu are called pointers, because it you extend an imaginary line through them, you’ll reach the Pole star (Dhruva)
Image source: http://ottawa-rasc.ca/kid_space/activities/young_observers/1999_may/constellation.html
When you look up in a dark sky you will see stars of many different hues – bluish white, bright white, bright red, orange, yellow and several other colors in between. Some stars visible to naked eye are extremely bright, while a large number of the stars are faint. But have you wondered if these stars had any names?
Many of the bright stars in the sky that you might be able to see even from a light-polluted city sky have proper names. In India, many of these stars were named thousands of years ago and the same names are in vogue today. The names of twenty seven asterisms (stars, or groups of stars) starting with Ashwini, ending with Revathi which are part of the twelve constellations in the zodiac have existed since then. By the way, many of the stars from this list of Indian asterisms are not very bright but they were named because they helped ancient Indians to formulate their calendar based on the movement of Sun and the Moon in the background of these stars.
Apart from these, names in Indian languages are available to few other bright stars outside the zodiac as well. The pole star, called ‘Dhruva’ is probably the most well known of such stars. The word ‘Dhruva’ in Samskrta means ‘constant’. This is a very apt name because the position of this star in the sky never changes and stays constant. The Pole star is a not an exceptionally bright star, but is a notable star because of its position it occupies in the sky. All stars in the sky appear as though they rotate around it. The Pole star never rises or sets, nor does it show any kind of movement in the sky. If you were at the North Pole, you would see the Pole star directly overhead, and all other stars go around, never rising or setting.
Many of the star names in English are taken from their Roman or Greek names. A large number of star names in English come from Arabic as well. For those stars for which there is no native Indian name, Indian stargazers use their international (English) names.
For those stars that don’t have proper names, there is a very interesting way of nomenclature. The sky is divided into 88 constellations. Constellations are imaginary star patterns in the sky. Some constellations actually resemble what they are supposed to resemble, and for some constellations, you must have an extremely eccentric imagination to relate a constellation to the figure it is supposed to mean! But that is beside the point. Any star you that you can see, belongs to one constellation or the other. The brightest star in a constellation is normally denoted by the Greek letter alpha, the second brightest beta, the third brightest gamma and so on. Thus, the brightest star in the constellation of Centaur would be called Alpha Centauri; the second brightest star in the constellation Leo would be called Beta Leonis. In this system, the Pole star would be called Alpha Ursa Minoris, because it is the brightest star in the constellation of Ursa Minor. Thus almost every star that has a proper name also has a name based on the constellation and the brightness of the star within the constellation it belongs to.
This method of naming although very useful has given some incorrect names too. For example, the bright red star Betelgeuse is called Alpha Orionis, meaning it is the brightest star in the constellation Orion. But if you look up the sky now to look at Orion, you will notice there is one more star that is brighter than Betelgeuse! That star is Rigel (or Beta Orionis, as you might have guessed). Betelgeuse is a variable star, meaning its brightness varies over time. There was a time when Betelgeuse might have actually looked brighter to bare eyes than Rigel, and that’s when this name must have come from and it has stayed on.
The constellation of Orion: The red star on the left is Betelguese (Beta Orionis, called Ardra in India)
Picture source: Astronomy picture of the day website (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081015.html)
Using Greek letters as prefixes to stars would only work for a handful of stars in any constellation. When you look at the sky with a telescope, you’d see thousands of new stars, invisible to naked eye. A new problem of naming these arises. Astronomers have a very interesting way of dealing with this problem.
Just like the Earth is divided by imaginary lines called longitudes from North Pole to South Pole, the sky is also divided by imaginary lines going from the north pole of the sky to the South Pole. Just as there is a prime meridian on Earth (0 degree longitude), there is a 0 hours right ascension (RA) line in the sky. The line that goes through the First point of Aries (The point in sky where the Sun would be seen on the spring equinox) is called 0 hours RA. Any star in sky can be located by its co-ordinates – how many hours (and/or minutes) away from the first point of Aries and how far is it from the equator of the sky. This is very similar to locating a place on the Earth knowing the longitude and latitude.
Now you must be guessing how this helps in naming stars! Every star in a constellation is given a number by the order of right ascension. As an example, the star within the area marked for the constellation Virgo and with the least right ascension will be labeled 1 Virginis. The star with next higher right ascension will be 2 Virginis and so on. Here there is no correlation between the number and the brightness of the star.
The first few months of the year are a treat to star gazers. There are a bunch of bright stars and constellations in the eastern sky. So what are you waiting for? There are many resources on the Internet to help you identify the stars and constellations. Get out and check out constellations Orion, Taurus, Gemini, Auriga and Perseus shining in the winter sky with bright stars like Sirius, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Aldebaran and Procyon. The three stars from the belt of Orion (see figure) and Pleiades star cluster are unmistakable from any corner on the Northern hemisphere. I bet you will have lots of fun star hunting!
-neelanjana
Today is January 6th – Tyagaraja attained Samadhi at Tiruvaiyyaru 163 years ago this day.
Sort of to keep the tradition, I translated a kriti of Tyagaraja on this special day. You can see my earlier translations in the following links:
The composition I chose for translation is a somewhat less-heard one, set in the raga called Sruti Ranjani. Tyagaraja was indeed a great innovator, and experimented with new melodies. He was the first composer to use hundreds of raagas, that were not known before his time. Sruthi Ranjani is one such raga. A different version of this composition in a very close rAga called Kantamani is also available. Often such different versions have sprung up in different lineages of students of Tyagaraja.
Here is the original sAhitya – Thanks to V Govindan’s wonderful Tyagaraja resource:
pallavi:
E dAri sancarinturA ika palkarA
anupallavi:
SrI-d(A)di madhy(A)nta rahita
sItA samEta guN(A)kara nEn(E dAri)
caraNa:
anni tAn(a)nu mArgamuna canaga
nannu vIDanu bhAram(a)ni(y)ADedavu
nannu brOvu dAsa varadA(y)aNTE ( alternately, nannu brOvu rA sadA yanTE as sung in the link below)
dvaituD(a)nedavu tyAgarAja nuta (E dAri)
You can listen to the composition here.
Here is a translation in Kannada. As with my earlier translations, I have tried to keep the sing-ability of the composition :
ಪಲ್ಲವಿ:
ಆವ ದಾರಿಯ ಹಿಡಿಯಲೋ? ಒಮ್ಮೆ ನುಡಿಯೋ! ನಾ ||ನಾವ ದಾರಿಯ ಹಿಡಿಯಲೋ||
ಅನುಪಲ್ಲವಿ:
ಸಿರಿಯೀವ ! ಕೊನೆ-ನಡು-ಮೊದಲಿರದ
ಸೀತೆಯೊಡನಾಡಿ ಗುಣದ ಗಣಿ ನಾನಾ ||ವ ದಾರಿಯ ಹಿಡಿಯಲೋ ||
ಚರಣ:
ನನ್ನಲೇ ಎಲ್ಲವೂ ಇಹುದು ಎನಲು
ನಾನುತನವು ಭಾರವೆನುವೆ*
ಎನ್ನ ಸಲಹ ಬಾರೋ ಎಂದೆನ್ನಲು
ನಿನ್ನೇ ಬಿಟ್ಟೆ ಎನುವೆ!** ತ್ಯಾಗರಾಜನುತ || ಆವ ದಾರಿಯ ಹಿಡಿಯಲೋ ||
In this composition, Tyagaraja asks Lord Rama to show the best path to reach him. If he followed the Advaita doctrine that preaches oneness with the Almighty, then Rama might say Tyagaraja has not still come out of the state of self-pride. On the other hand, if he followed the Dvaita doctrine (dualistic), then Rama might say that Tyagaraja has separated from him. So, either way, Tyagaraja thinks he is in trouble, and asks Rama to show him the right path.
-ನೀಲಾಂಜನ
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 42,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 5 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 31 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 159 posts. There were 214 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 73mb. That’s about 4 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was January 28th with 326 views. The most popular post that day was What’s Wrong With Michael Wood’s ‘The Story of India’?.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were rasikas.org, sampada.net, twitter.com, facebook.com, and kn.wordpress.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for tirupati, tirupati balaji, eclipse, balaji, and tirupati temple.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
1
What’s Wrong With Michael Wood’s ‘The Story of India’? January 2009
10 comments
2
ದೀಪವು ನಿನ್ನದೆ, ಗಾಳಿಯು ನಿನ್ನದೆ September 2007
26 comments
3
Lord Venkateshwara and Udupi Restaurants … February 2009
6 comments
4
The Great Indian Eclipse? June 2009
2 comments
5
Govinda Smarane and Blog Hits March 2009
3 comments
Why did I post this? Since there was no typing (well, almost) involved
Happy new year 2011 to all the visitors to “Allide namma mane”!
-neelanjana
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