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Continued from part 3...
Next we'll look at Mars, which has the longest synodic
period of all the planets. We can see that Mars is the
first planet beyond Earth's orbit since Mars is moving
much faster through the caelestial zodiac than Jupiter
or Saturn. But like the Jovian planets we can see that
the elongations of Mars from the Sun reach oppositions
on an observably predictable periodic basis as is true
for heliacal risings, settings, squares, trines or any
repeating angle of aspect to the Sun. Heliacal risings
are being treated as semisextile aspect for continuity,
and the nice round number thirty degrees is convenient,
easy to remember and to measure by hand, since a whole
hand or fist plus three closed middle fingers at arm's
length together makes 15 degrees, two whole fists make
about 20 degrees, depending on your physical type. The
angle from outstretched thumbtip to pinky fingertip is
some 25 degrees, but you must calibrate your own hands
and fingers to estimate a perspective angle accurately.
An easy way to do this is to stand in a rectangular or
square room and see how many hands, fists, and fingers
it takes to measure 90 degrees, i.e. from wall to wall.
Four times a fist and 3 closed middle fingers ought to
be about 90 degrees. Experiment to see what works best.
Calibrating by the stars assures the greatest accuracy.
No matter how close or far away an object is, ten feet
or ten thousand lightyears, the angle subtended to you
viewing those objects will be the same. A really sharp
naked-eye astronomer can discern down to one arcminute.
But I'm being conservative, so that ancient stargazers
would need only resolve twenty arcminutes and estimate
positions of stars and planets to plus or minus one de-
gree, which for the Sun's apparent motion is about one
day equals one degree. This is essential to know since
adding one or more days to a predicted heliacal rising
adds ~1 degree per day to the Sun's ecliptic longitude.
Each consecutive heliacal rising for Mars occurs about
780 days apart. With a spectacular opposition for Mars
just days away at this writing which will be August 27,
2003, Mars will rise heliacally about December 12 2004
at 26 Libra to the Sun 26 Scorpio. Mars will rise near
5:50 AM from my location with two marking stars rising
above Mars, Zubenelgenubi at 20 Lib +0 & Zubeneshamali
at 25 Lib +8. Add 780 days and we have January 31 2007.
There's Mars at 16 Sagittarius to the Sun 16 Capricorn,
30 degrees apart. Mars rises locally about 6:40 AM. It
is nearly impossible to see Kaus Borealis at 12 Sag -2
this close to sunrise (past astronomical twilight) and
Mars may be difficult to spot here in the mountains of
central Colorado. 16 Sag is 20 degrees past 26 Lib but
we've witnessed Mars at opposition back on August 27th
2003 and again November 7, 2005, an 803-day difference.
This also tells us that Mars is zipping along, so must
have circuited the zodiac past 360 degrees, and is now
360 add 20 equals 380 degrees from where it was before.
Simple interpolation tells us Mars takes some 739 days
to complete one sidereal orbit. This is a rough figure
as further observation shows. 10 times 780 is 7800. Ex-
rience shows Mars has significant orbital eccentricity,
and orbits quite rapidly through the caelestial zodiac.
We find through experience that Mars is frequently off
by a month or more from where we predicted it would be
last we predicted its next heliacal rising, setting or
any other repeating like-phase. Mars is at 14 Pis, and
the Sun is 6 Ari on April 21, 2026. We must jump ahead
to May 28, 2026, fully 37 days later, to find Mars and
the Sun separated by 30 degrees sidereal longitude. As
the apparent velocity of Mars is nearly as fast as the
Sun's past superior conjunction it takes a few days to
compensate for being just a degree off from 30 degrees.
Thus to compensate for 8 degrees delta took us 37 days.
Come May 28 2026, Mars is 12 Ari and the Sun is 12 Tau.
Hamal at 13 Ari +10 and Sheratan at 9 Ari + 8 makes it
easy to estimate Mars' position at 12 Aries. Shedir at
13 Ari +47 draws a nearly perpendicular line or arc to
Hamal relative to the ecliptic making measurement easy.
26 Libra is 166 degrees from 12 Ari, meaning Mars went
under eleven & a half times or 4126 degrees around the
zodiac in 7837 days, making our observable average 684
days per sidereal orbit based on just two observations
ten heliacal risings apart. Babylonians over centuries
of observation and calibration found this to be around
687 days based on the long-term averages, which is one
year, three hundred twenty-two days per sidereal orbit
of Mars. These ancient astronomers-astrologers noticed
that 151 sidereal orbits of Mars nearly coincided with
284 tropical years and 133 repeating synodic phases of
Mars to the Sun. Add 284 years to December 12 2004 and
we arrive at December 12, 2288. There's Mars at 23 Lib
and the Sun 22 Sco, 29 degrees apart. Merely four days
later finds Mars 26 Lib & Sun 26 Sco--right on the dot.
So the ancient Babylonian sidereal-synodic multiple of
Mars is off just 4 days in 284 years...very impressive.
We also notice that Mars goes retrograde centered near
inferior conjunction for an average of 73 days. Try it.
Astrolog charts the synodic velocities of every planet.
The presently-imminent opposition August 27 2003 shows
Mars turned retrograde back on July 29, 2003, and will
leave retrograde September 27 2003, a difference of 60
days. With every empirical observation for retrogrades
and oppositions, the accuracy of this average improves.
Observation proves 73 days is Mars' retrograde average.
End Part 4. See Part 5 For Continuation...
Daniel Joseph Min
*Min's Planetary Awareness Technique (chapters 1 thru 6):
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=HFVIRNCU37838.7946990741@Gilgamesh-frog.org
*Min's Official PGP Public Key on the MIT server:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3XWB7QJO37766.971099537@Gilgamesh-frog.org
*Min's Home Page On The World Wide Web:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=0XNKAO4L37773.8337962963@Gilgamesh-frog.org
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