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Celestial Sphere

Celestial Sphere - Astrology Encyclopedia

Definition of 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, any circle drawn around it can be termed a circumference. To locate any particular circle as a circumference, implies the selection of some point of reference.

The Horizontal System. If your particular location on the Earth is selected as your point of reference, the point directly overhead is the zenith. The opposite point, below the Earth, is the Nadir. At right angles to these is a plane which is called the Horizon: the extension to the Celestial circle of the line which, from the point you occupy, intersects earth and sky. These established, you have a Vertical circle running from the Zenith, through a middle point between East and West, to the Nadir; and similar circles running through each degree all around the horizon. The distance of each of these circles from your circle is measured by the arc at which the circles intersect at the Zenith - termed Azimuth. Parallel to the Horizon are Parallels of altitude. These are measured by the arc separating the radius of your horizon from a line drawn from the same center to a given parallel of altitude.

The trouble with this system is that a location based upon your position fails to describe the same location as viewed from any other point on the Earth's surface.

The Equator System. This takes as a point of reference the diurnal rotation of the Earth around its axis. Extending the North and South poles, you have the North and South Celestial poles. Extending the Equator, you have the Celestial Equator. The Equator is intercepted by Hour Circles, whereby location is indicated in hours and minutes of Right Ascension, measured Eastward from the Zero Circle which passes through Greenwich. Parallel to the Equator are Parallels of Declination, indicated by their angular distance plus, if North of the Equator; and minus if South.

With your celestial sphere marked off on this system, it can be seen that the Sun does not travel around this Celestial equator; but instead, its orbit is inclined to that of the Equator some 23.5 degrees. The points at which the Sun's apparent orbit intersects the Equator are the Equinoxes, and the points of greatest separation are the Solstices. (These names have to do with an entirely different but coincidental factor. v. Precession.)

The Ecliptic System. The path of the Sun, called the Ecliptic, is based on the annual revolution of the Earth around the Sun. Taking this apparent path of the Sun as a circumference, you have at right angles thereto the North and South poles of the Ecliptic: connected by vertical circles of Longitude measured in degrees Eastward from the Vernal Equinox. Circles parallel to the Ecliptic are measured in degrees of Latitude North or South.

Stretching for some 8 degrees on either side of the Ecliptic is a belt in which lie the orbits of all the solar system bodies, each inclined in various degrees to the Earth's orbit. Since Hipparchus (q.v.), the greatest of the ancient astronomers, this belt has been divided into twelve 30� arcs, or signs, measured from the Vernal Equinox; the signs named from the constellations which once coin- cided with these arcs, but which because of the Precession of the Equinoxial point now no longer coincide. The statement that this disproves astrology is sheer ignorance, for no modern astrologer ascribes the sign influences to their background of stars, but to conditions of momentum and gravitation within the earth by virtue of its annual revolution around the Sun. (v. Zodiac; Precession; Galactic Center.) Many of these terms are loosely used by some astrologers, largely because they lack complete astronomical understanding of the factors on which their map of the heavens for a given moment is erected. (v. Map of the Heavens.)

Vertical Sphere. The circle of observation in which one stands when facing South (probably so termed because it is the observer's horizon raised vertically and projected upon the heavens), is the circle that is presumably subdivided into twelve equal 2-hour segments as it passes over the horizon, which divisions are termed the Houses of a Nativity. On the Equator these Houses are equal in both time and arc, but they become increasingly unequal in arc as one passes N. or S. from the Equator. This results from the declination of the Poles, and the consequent inclination of the Ecliptic to the Equator. The planets which are posited in these signs pass obliquely through the semi-arc of the Ecliptic to the Mid-heaven - not the zenith. Therefore the position which a planet will occupy at some future moment, to which it is desired to direct it, must be calculated by Oblique Ascension.

In an effort to reconcile the rising or ascendant moment at which a planet passes above the horizon, with its oblique ascension along the Ecliptic to a mid-heaven point that is on the same longitudinal circle as the Zenith, but a considerable distance removed from it, various attempted compromises have resulted in several different systems of House Division (q.v.). The horizon system appears to yield the correct House positions of the planets in a birth map, but the directing (q.v.) of planets to the positions they will occupy at some future moment, requires the application of Oblique Ascension, both to the planets' places and to the progressed cusps.

For a concise classification of the term, note the appended table:

THE CELESTIAL SPHERE

Circle of reference Horizon Celestial Equator Ecliptic

Poles Zenith N. celestial pole Midheaven

Nadir S. celestial pole Immum Coeli

Secondary Circles Vertical circles Hour Circles Latitude circles

Parallels of altitude Parallels of declination Parallels of Latitude Coordinates Altitude Declination Celes. Latitude

Azimuth Right Ascension Celes. Longitude

Zero Circle Vertical c. thru S. Hour c. thru Ver. Latit. c. thru V.

point Equinox Equinox.

Direction of first Through West Eastward Eastward

coordinate

(Nicholas deVore - Encyclopedia of Astrology)

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