The Book of Stars: Being a Simple Explanation of the Stars and Their Uses to Boy Life

by A. Frederick Collins

Fig. 170.—The Zodiac as Invented by the Ancients.

Fig. 171.—The Zodiac as We Know It Today.

Suppose we draw a little circle and call it the Sun, as shown in [Fig. 171], and draw an ellipse around it and call it the Earth’s orbit, putting on another little circle for the Earth; now suppose we draw a much larger ellipse round the one representing the Earth’s orbit, divide it into 12 parts and put a constellation in each part.

Knowing now that the Sun, Moon and planets are very near the Earth when compared with the fixed stars it must be plain that these bodies when seen from the Earth, which is always changing its position in its travels round the Sun, would appear to move in and across the constellations.

Take a look at Jupiter some night when he is moving across any of the constellations and he will seem to be a part of it; this is the reason we speak of the Sun or a planet as being in a certain constellation at a given time.

The stars forming the background of the Moon and the planets can always be seen, for we are then looking at them from the dark side of the Earth, but they cannot be seen when they form the background of the Sun, for the stars are on the other side of him when he gets between us and them and he shines in our eyes.

These constellations through which the Sun, Moon and planets seem to pass, or as the almanacs say are in, lie in a belt formed by the path of the Sun and neither the Moon nor the planets ever get farther from the path of the Sun than 8 degrees on either side of him and this belt is called the zodiac.

The belt, or zodiac, is divided into 12 equal parts, or spaces, which were called signs by the ancients and they are still called signs. This makes the length of each sign, or space, 30 degrees, and hence the 12 signs, which are called the Signs of the Zodiac, equal 360 degrees or a complete circle. ([See Chapter X], The Time o’ Day.)

The Signs of the Zodiac and the constellations of the Zodiac have the following names: Aries, the Ram; Taurus, the Bull; Gemini, the Twins; Cancer, the Crab; Leo, the Lion; Virgo, the Virgin; Libra, the Balance; Scorpio, the Scorpion; Sagittarius, the Archer; Capricornus, the Goat; Aquarius, the Water Bearer, and Pisces, the Fishes. It is in one of these constellations that the Sun, Moon and planets are always to be found.