He introduced new methods for determining the position of the equinox and the right ascension of a fundamental star.
He found that this could be explained by a motion of the equinox in the direction of the apparent diurnal motion of the stars.
Cronius, Mount, at Olympia, sacrifice at the spring equinox on, i.
Zurich, effigies of Winter burnt after the spring equinox at, iv.
At the vernal equinox the appearance of the zodiacal light is that of a pretty broad pyramidal, or rather lenticular, body of light, which begins to be visible as soon as the twilight decays.
This rule was based on the supposed fact that the spring equinox happened every year on the 21st of March, as it did at the time of the meeting of the Council.
We may find a meaning for this by putting it that the equinox goes forward fourteen days in each thousand years, and each day takes up seventy-one years.
Now the sun's position in the zodiac refers to the former, his appearance at the equinox to the latter kind of year.
Each solar year then--and these are the years we usually reckon by--the equinox is at a point fifty seconds of arc to the east on the zodiac, an effect which is known by the name of the precession of the equinoxes.
In the first place we may notice that in the time of Hipparchus the vernalequinox was in the first degree of the Ram, from which our own arrangement has originated.
At that epoch the vernalequinox happened on the 11th instead of the 21st of March.
But during this time, as we have seen, the equinox is displaced among the stars.
At the winter solstice with them he was an infant, at the spring equinox he was a young man, in summer a man in full age with flowing beard, and in the autumn an old man.
Now if in any old description we find that theequinox is referred to as being in the Ram or in the Bull, it tells us at once how long ago such a description was a true one, and, therefore, when it was written.
The Council decreed that the first day of full moon after the spring equinox should be regarded as the 14th Nisan, and that the festival of the resurrection should be celebrated on the Sunday following.
Since the 25th of March as the spring equinoxwas held as the day of creation, the day of the incarnation, the conception of Christ, the second Adam, as the beginning of the new creation was held on the same day, and hence 25th Dec.
Secondly, that 14th day, or the full moon, should be that on or next after the vernal equinox; and thirdly, the equinox itself was invariably assigned to the 21st of March.
The following is an account given in Ramsay's Travels of Cyrus, concerning the vernal equinox festivals in the East.
This festival is thought to be coeval with a time when the equinox actually took place at that time.
The equinox is that period in which the sun, in its yearly course, crosses the equator, and makes the day and the night of equal length.
This year, however, the equinox brought no storm with it, and the lighted fires have continued to burn with such fierceness that not only the swamp, but the surrounding country, is in danger of being laid waste.
Autumnal Equinox a period of general mourning because of--, 588-l.
Virgo and Bootes at the Autumnal Equinox introduce the serpent, 455-l.
When the Vernal Equinox was in Taurus, Aldebarán led up the starry host; and as he rose in the East, Aries was about 27° high.
And the throne of Solomon, with bulls adorning its arms, and supported on lions, like those of Horus in Egypt and of the Sun at Tyre; likewise referred to the Vernal Equinox and Summer Solstice.
Osiris died at the Autumnal Equinox and rose in the Spring, 478-u.
Sun at the Vernal Equinox communicates to the earth his warmth, 475-u.
And when at the Vernal Equinox he entered Taurus, they still more rejoiced at the assurance that the days would again be longer than the nights, that the season of seed-time had come, and the Summer and harvest would follow.
The reverence paid to Taurus continued long after, by the precession of the Equinoxes, the colure of the vernal equinoxhad come to pass through Aries.
The mistake evidently is in making the 25th instead of the 24th, the date of the vernal equinox in the time of Caesar, consequently a difference of four days instead of three from Caesar to the Council of Nice.
Had he dropped the thirteen days, the vernal equinoxwould have been restored to the 24th of March, its date in the time of Caesar, and the 24th would still be its date.
In order to restore the vernal equinox to the 24th of March, the place it occupied in the time of Numa, two months, together consisting of 67 days, were inserted between the last day of November and the first day of December of that year.
But if the star is north or south of the equator, then its right ascension is the number of degrees of the equator, intercepted between the vernal equinox and that secondary to the equator which passes through the star.
The vernal equinox occurs about the twenty-first of March, and the autumnal, about the twenty-second of September.
Sidereal time commences when the vernal equinox is on the meridian, just as solar time commences when the sun is on the meridian.
As, therefore, the sun revolving from west to east, in his apparent orbit, comes round to the point where it left the equinox, it meets the equinox before it reaches that point.
Right ascension is the angular distance from the vernal equinox measured on the equator.
Celestial longitude is the distance of a body from the vernal equinoxmeasured on the ecliptic.
It has been already intimated that the Vernal equinox probably was near the head of Aries, when the signs of the zodiac received their present names.
Professor Mitchell, to whom the fact was communicated, employed his assistants to ascertain the exact position of the heavenly bodies belonging to our solar system on the equinox of that year.
The word equinox implies the condition that the night is equal to the day.
Your equinox is on March the 21st, ours on the 10th, and the astronomers say we are both wrong; sometimes it is we who are wrong and sometimes you, as the equinox varies.
If they are driven upon the reefs, no human power can save them; since the last equinox two ships have been lost on this coast.
The equinox has brought with it darkness and Northern storms, and night will quickly close the short and dismal polar day.
The Vernal Equinox is that one which the sun passes through or intersects in going from S to N declination, and the Autumnal Equinox that which it passes through or intersects in going from N to S declination.
The Vernal Equinox (V in the illustration) is also designated as the First Point of Aries which is of use in reckoning star time and will be mentioned in more detail later.
I hope to receive my permission in time to sail immediately after the vernal equinox, because this will give me time to arrange my affairs in America, and to return here between the autumnal equinox and setting in of the winter.
The death of Tammuz was annually bewailed at the spring equinox in Babylonia and Syria, as were Adonis in Syria and Greece, and Attis in Phrygia, pictured "as a man fastened with a lamb at the foot.
The death and resurrection of the Solar Hero at or about the vernal equinoxis as wide-spread as his birth at the winter solstice.
The animal adopted as the symbol of the Hero is the sign of the Zodiac in which the Sun is at the vernal equinox of his age, and this varies with the precession of the equinoxes.
