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Re: The vernal equinox*



At 15:47 3/18/00 -0800, Leigh wrote:
At 10:55 AM -0800 3/18/00, Roger Freedman wrote:

Monday, March 20, 2000, is the day of the vernal equinox.

Not for you and me, Roger. For us in the Pacific Standard
time zone (and those west of us) the vernal equinox is at
11:35 PM PST on Sunday, 19 March - tomorrow night.
....
I'm not sure there is any physical significance to the
factoids I have just cast before you, but they seem to be
useful for planning parties and seductions. Astrology is
not completely dead.

Leigh

I recall a story that a court astrologer recommended postponing
the official opening of an observatory to be placed in a home
for superannuated sailors, and intended for the advancement of
marine navigation until a particularly propitious moment.
And so it was done.

And in time the pensioners were bought out, so the hospital
could be turned to use as a Naval College. By then that
observatory had became the crux of a world reference system,
so that navigators everywhere referred their zenith to
that of said observatory: the Greenwich Hour Angle.

Entirely coincidental, of course. :-)




brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK