Skyscript Astrology Forum

I am currently researching the subject of the cycle of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions in traditional astrology.

Before the modern obsession with the precession of the equinoxes and the Theosophical inspired focus on ?The Age of Aquarius? the cycle of these conjunctions through the different triplicities was one of the principle ways to look at the broad sweep of history astrologically.

There are innumerable references to this topic in traditional astrological literature. The idea seems to originate from Persia. It is little surprise then that the first astrological sources to discuss the mundane significance of the cycle of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions such as Abu?Mashar and Massah? Allah were culturally Persian.

In astronomical terms each conjunction occurs approximately every 20 years. A change of triplicity occurs broadly every 200 years and the cycle returns to starting point every 800 years. Hence the conjunction of 2000 at 22?43 Taurus was the last in a cycle of earth sign conjunctions that first occurred in 1802. The next conjunction in 2020 will be at 00?29 Aquarius and there will then be an unbroken sequence of conjunctions in the air the triplicity up to 2159.

Many traditional writers on this topic seem to have been satisfied with simply knowing what zodiacal degree the conjunctions took place in. Not least because calculating the exact conjunction of these slow moving bodies to an exact time exceeded the astronomical knowledge of the time. When the medieval astrologers did want an exactly timed chart tied to the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction they tended to look at the Aries ingress chart for the year in which the conjunction occurred.

With our increased level of astronomical sophistication many astrologers now advocate drawing up a chart for the exact moment of the conjunction. This includes traditional writers such as John Frawley and Regulus Astrology. I have some sympathy for that approach but I have a more practical concern of whether even today we can arrive at an exactly timed chart for such a conjunction?

For example lets take a look at the conjunction of May 28th 2000 which took place at 22?43 Taurus and locate a chart for London.

Using Solar Fire software I come up with a time of 15.34.52 GMT/UT when the planets first come into contact by conjunction

However, in this article Regulus Astrology displays a chart for the conjunction of 2000 timed for 17:04 GMT. Actually he displays a chart for Washington DC with EST at 12.04 PM but that is obviously 5 hours behind GMT/UT.

http://regulus-astrology.com/pdf/Americ ... ntests.pdf

Wikipedia list the great conjunctions and the link below times the conjunction of 2000 to 15.56.27 GMT/UT in terms of ecliptical longitude.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_conjunction

I have also found this very useful online empheris of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions running from 600 BCE to 2400 CE which times the 2000 conjunction to 15:38 GMT/UT.

http://www.astropro.com/features/tables ... 000sa.html

What are we to make of these conflicting times? I can only assume the Regulus astrology chart is based on an error as its well outside the times given elsewhere. Still even excluding this chart we have a gap of 22 minutes between the different sources. I appreciate we are looking at the 'big picture' here with such conjunctions but these kind of time differences can give us charts with differing rising signs so the issue is quite significant if we are going to use timed charts.

Fundamentally, is the issue the accuracy of different software or simply the complexity of giving an accurately timed moment for such an event?

If astrologers are going to follow the recommendation of John Frawley and Regulus Astrology to work with an exactly timed chart for the JSC we clearly need more clarity on this issue.

Mark

Mark wrote: However, in this article Regulus Astrology displays a chart for the conjunction of 2000 timed for 17:04 GMT. Actually he displays a chart for Washington DC with EST at 12.04 PM but that is obviously 5 hours behind GMT/UT.

What are we to make of these conflicting times? I can only assume the Regulus astrology chart is based on an error as its well outside the times given elsewhere.

Regulus is the correct one.

note that there is 4 hours between EDT and UT

http://www.astro.com/swisseph/swisseph.htm
Astrolog uses the swisseph; most, if not all commercial software uses swisseph too.

Jupiter gets ahead of saturn between 16:03:40 and 16:03:41


apparent positions
----------------------------------------jupiter----------saturn
28 May 2000 16:03:40 UT | 52.72133550 | 52.72133630
28 May 2000 16:03:41 UT | 52.72133820 | 52.72133780

----------------------------------------jupiter----------saturn
28 May 2000 15:34:52 UT | 52.71666770 | 52.71881560 |

convert 52.71666770 to DMS = 52-43-00.0003
convert 52.71881560 to DMS = 52-43-07.736
see anything wrong with solar fire now?

Solar fire imo, from the 1st day i got it seemed to be riddled with errors; i don't trust it. I fired off about 10 bug reports in no time. I can still find them and debug them without struggle... I don't see them offering me any love back though. I was kind of upset that it was getting 10/10 reviews. More so than the cost... but that reviewers aren't up to the task!

This last bit are some tidbits and clues as to the complications involved in getting exact numbers and why maybe wikipedia can come up with a different result.
http://www.astro.com/swisseph/swisseph. ... c354497507
pay some attention to the time range of the files, I'm not sure how far various softwares using swisseph will take you, at least without deliberately getting the ephemeris files yourself. I did this for older versions of astrolog and i'm not sure anymore since I havn't done this in a while (Directory Settings) To be certain certain certain - get swewin32
ftp://www.astro.com/pub/swisseph/programs/
and get the sepl files to go with it to get as far back as you need.
3. The full JPL Ephemeris
This is the full precision state-of-the-art ephemeris. It provides the highest precision and is the basis of the Astronomical Almanac.

The currently newest version of JPL ephemeris is the DE405/DE406. As most previous ephemerides, it has been created by Dr. Myles Standish.

The Swiss Ephemeris, from Version 1.70 on, reproduces astrometric planetary positions of the JPL Horizons System precisely. However, there are small differences with the apparent positions. The reason is that the Horizons System still uses the old precession model IAU 1976 (Lieske) and nutation IAU 1980 (Wahr). This was confirmed by Jon Giorgini from JPL in an E-mail of 3 Feb. 2006.

Note on 2 August 2012. It seems that this is still true, according to the documentation of the Horizons System at: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?horizons_doc#longterm

Jupiter-Saturn conjunction
Dec 26, 14 (2000 years ago)

swewin32
26.12.14 jul. 20:12:39 UT without sepl_00
26.12.14 jul. 20:08:44 UT with sepl_00
Ecl. obl. 23?41'43.8639 23?41'35.4203 (true, mean)
Nutation 0? 0' 0.9817 0? 0' 8.4435 (dpsi, deps)

astrolog32
26.12.14 20:12:53 without
26.12.14 20:08:58 with Directory setting to c:\sweph\ephe
Obliquity: 23-41-43.8529

still some slight discrepancies, probably from the constants being used. I wonder which is better.

note: swewin expects to find them in a folder named c:\sweph\ephe\

One slight complication that should be mentioned is that time is a complicated business. Stating a time as "GMT/UT" is actually oxymoronic, and there has been no mention so far of Delta T and leap seconds.

GMT as a time standard no longer exists and it is not synonymous with UT. One reason can be seen by anyone who stands at the East/West divide at the Greenwich Observatory with their GPS receiver. They will see that they are actually about a hundred metres to the West of where longitude zero is currently defined (using the now ubiquitous WGS84 geoid). In fact, the term "GMT" ceased to be used in astronomical almanacs in the 1960s

Astronomical almanacs and table are calculated using what I shall loosely call Ephemeris Time, which can be linked to Atomic Time as paced out by atomic clocks, which is now independent of the earth's orbital rotational period (on which GMT was originally based)

Universal Broadcast Time (UTC) on which our civil time is based is (currently) a version of Atomic Time, which is corrected periodically by the addition or subtraction of a leap second to track the observed mean solar day.

But the earth's rotation is slowing down at a rate which is unpredictable, so how UTC will relate to Ephemeris Time in a hundred years from now cannot be quoted to the nearest second with any confidence at all. Even quoting it to the nearest minute is dubious. There is a move to abandon leap seconds entirely, which will mean a steady drift of UTC away from Ephemeris Time and so in a hundred years, there could well be half an hour of time difference between Ephemeris Time and what your watch says.

I wonder if the time difference quoted by various 'authorities' for the exact conjunction time just reflects different assumptions about what 'time' is?

Ariondys wrote:

Regulus is the correct one.

I dont see how it can be. He cities a chart for Washington DC for 28/05/2000 at 12:04 EST with 10 Virgo rising.

note that there is 4 hours between EDT and UT

I am aware of that. However, you are somewhat missing my point here.

Bottom line if you calculate a chart for that location using the UT time of 16.04 you end up with a chart with 28 Leo rising. The Regulus Astrology chart has 10 Virgo rising. It seems he probably had an accurate time but simply relocated the chart incorrectly using EST rather than EDT as his chart is exactly 1 hour different from what you get using UT located to Washington for 16.04. Basically, he has moved the UT time back 4 hours to that location but used EST rather than EDT. If you list the chart in EST the time displayed should be for 11.04AM not 12.04PM

The chart I am referring to is at the bottom of page 6 of this Regulus Astrology article:

http://regulus-astrology.com/pdf/Americ ... ntests.pdf

The lesson I get from this is that its maybe safer to just list JSC charts in UT in the first place to avoid such errors. In any case I dont think this issue had any impact on how Regulus Astrology interpreted the chart in his article.

http://www.astro.com/swisseph/swisseph.htm
Astrolog uses the swisseph; most, if not all commercial software uses swisseph too.

Thanks for the information. Since the ephemeris listed by Richard Nolle and Wikipedia in the links above are not strictly accurate is anyone aware of any other online resources that accurately time the Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions through history?

While I am not that keen to fork out on new software on just this issue can you recommend any commercial software that more accurately reflects the Swiss Ephemeris times? What about Kepler? Is it any better for such work? :

I know there are quite a few people on this forum that are software programmers so this issue will be simplicity itself for them. Looks like you might be one of them! Spare a thought for the less gifted amongst us who just want a fairly basic way to get the relevant information.

Ariondys wrote:

Solar fire imo, from the 1st day i got it seemed to be riddled with errors; i don't trust it. I fired off about 10 bug reports in no time. I can still find them and debug them without struggle... I don't see them offering me any love back though. I was kind of upset that it was getting 10/10 reviews. More so than the cost... but that reviewers aren't up to the task!

Mark

Geoffrey stated:

Stating a time as "GMT/UT" is actually oxymoronic

Thanks for pointing out my 'oxymoronic' error

Your comments were very instructive. More on International Atomic Time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Time

Mark

Mark wrote: Thanks for the information. Since the ephemeris listed by Richard Nolle and Wikipedia in the links above are not strictly accurate is anyone aware of any other online resources that accurately time the Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions through history?

http://www.true-node.com/eph1/
03 May 1583 00:35:11 UT | 350.18132520 | 350.18132470
this was the oldest date I found that agreed with me, I don't know why the discontinuity didn't occur at the boundary of a sepl file, I would've thought it would do that.

it seemed to work precisely back to 1583 and clearly deviate at the boundary of 31 Dec 1582 - Jan 1 1583 (why that date I can't imagine.)

While I am not that keen to fork out on new software on just this issue can you recommend any commercial software that more accurately reflects the Swiss Ephemeris times? What about Kepler? Is it any better for such work? :

I havn't tried any other commercial software.

Astrolog is free. I use it in preference to the one I actually payed for... whenever possible. you can adjust the dates and time very quickly with keyboard commands, instead of entering date fields, or clicking arrows.

It will do this automated but not precisely to the second
(Tue) 3- 5-1583 0:35 Jupiter (Pis) Con (Pis) Saturn
(Thu) 18-12-1603 6:54 Jupiter (Sag) Con (Sag) Saturn
(Sun) 16- 7-1623 22:42 Jupiter (Leo) Con (Leo) Saturn
(Tue) 24- 2-1643 23:14 Jupiter (Pis) Con (Pis) Saturn
(Tue) 16-10-1663 23:49 Jupiter (Sag) Con (Sag) Saturn
(Sat) 24-10-1682 7:42 Jupiter (Leo) Con (Leo) Saturn
(Tue) 9- 2-1683 1:16 Jupiter [Leo] Con [Leo] Saturn
(Tue) 18- 5-1683 5:46 Jupiter (Leo) Con (Leo) Saturn
(Sun) 21- 5-1702 20:58 Jupiter (Ari) Con (Ari) Saturn
(Tue) 5- 1-1723 15:15 Jupiter (Sag) Con (Sag) Saturn
(Thu) 30- 8-1742 20:52 Jupiter (Leo) Con (Leo) Saturn
(Thu) 18- 3-1762 16:41 Jupiter (Ari) Con (Ari) Saturn
(Tue) 5-11-1782 9:25 Jupiter (Sag) Con (Sag) Saturn
(Sat) 17- 7-1802 22:48 Jupiter (Vir) Con (Vir) Saturn
(Tue) 19- 6-1821 17:14 Jupiter (Ari) Con (Ari) Saturn
(Wed) 26- 1-1842 6:12 Jupiter (Cap) Con (Cap) Saturn
(Mon) 21-10-1861 12:26 Jupiter (Vir) Con (Vir) Saturn
(Mon) 18- 4-1881 13:38 Jupiter (Tau) Con (Tau) Saturn
(Thu) 28-11-1901 16:28 Jupiter (Cap) Con (Cap) Saturn
(Sat) 10- 9-1921 4:13 Jupiter (Vir) Con (Vir) Saturn
(Thu) 8- 8-1940 1:24 Jupiter (Tau) Con (Tau) Saturn
(Sun) 20-10-1940 4:35 Jupiter [Tau] Con [Tau] Saturn
(Sat) 15- 2-1941 6:35 Jupiter (Tau) Con (Tau) Saturn
(Sun) 19- 2-1961 0:01 Jupiter (Cap) Con (Cap) Saturn
(Wed) 31-12-1980 21:24 Jupiter (Lib) Con (Lib) Saturn
(Wed) 4- 3-1981 19:04 Jupiter [Lib] Con [Lib] Saturn
(Fri) 24- 7-1981 4:14 Jupiter (Lib) Con (Lib) Saturn
(Sun) 28- 5-2000 16:03 Jupiter (Tau) Con (Tau) Saturn
(Mon) 21-12-2020 18:20 Jupiter (Aqu) Con (Aqu) Saturn

if you leave too many hits in your search, you can end up waiting for a long time, possibly a very long time...

so, follow this carefully. if after you get the files from the pub at astro.com and Directory Setting the ephemeris

1)Settings-Aspect Selections and Settings...
checkbox beside conjunction ONLY

2)Settings and Settings-Object Selections
checkboxes beside ONLY jupiter and saturn

3)Settings-Miscellaneous Settings...
Restrict Sign Change Events in Searches
Restrict Direction Changes Events in Searchs

4) I started with a main chart data for 1583

5)Lists - Transits...
toggle on radiobutton beside Transit to Transit hits
toggle on radiobutton beside Range of Years
fill in box Years to Span to 440

You can see searching divisions. This sort of device is probably a source of inaccuracy in BOTH the list I've just made, and the list on astropro. At any rate 1683 is closer to 5:49, the previous years rounded(or truncated, idk) to agree with my list.

That was the 1st time I tried using that search feature, it didn't work as well as I'd hoped.

I know there are quite a few people on this forum that are software programmers so this issue will be simplicity itself for them. Looks like you might be one of them! Spare a thought for the less gifted amongst us who just want a fairly basic way to get the relevant information.

I think this is the fairly basic way to maximize your precision. Or you will be at the mercy of programmers who may or may not have tried to tell you all of the ifs/ands/or buts

ftp://www.astro.com/pub/swisseph/ephe/
sepl_00.se1 473 kB 16/12/1998 00:00:00
sepl_06.se1 472 kB 16/12/1998 00:00:00
sepl_12.se1 472 kB 16/12/1998 00:00:00
sepl_18.se1 473 kB 16/12/1998 00:00:00

pl for planet
mo for moon
as for asteroid (4 big ones)
600 years / file

create c:\sweph\ephe folders
download files- move from your download folder to c:\sweph\ephe

get astrolog32
http://www.orionsoft.cz/astrolog32/en/v ... nloads.htm

Setting - Directory Settings...
type into Ephemeris textbox: C:\sweph\ephe

and it will probably beep a warning at you. about a couple other textboxes.

Thanks Ariondys,

The times for the conjunctions are really handy. I will need a bit longer to absorb the technicalties in your post. Thank you for sharing all that.

Ariondys wrote:

it seemed to work precisely back to 1583 and clearly deviate at the boundary of 31 Dec 1582 - Jan 1 1583 (why that date I can't imagine.)

Surely this must relate back to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in much of Europe? It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by papal bull on 4 February 1582. However, not all Roman Catholic countries adopted it immediately.

From Wikipedia:

Four Catholic countries - Spain, Portugal, the Polish?Lithuanian Commonwealth, and most of Italy - implemented the new calendar on the date specified by the bull, with Julian Thursday, 4 October 1582 being followed by Gregorian Friday, 15 October 1582. The Spanish and Portuguese colonies adopted the calendar later because of the slowness of communication. Other Catholic countries soon followed. France adopted the new calendar with Sunday, 9 December 1582 being followed by Monday, 20 December 1582. The Dutch provinces of Brabant, Zeeland and the Staten-Generaal also adopted it on 25 December of that year, the provinces forming the Southern Netherlands (modern Belgium) except the Duchy of Brabant on 1 January 1583, and the province of Holland followed suit on 12 January 1583.

Many Protestant countries initially objected to adopting a Catholic invention; some Protestants feared the new calendar was part of a plot to return them to the Catholic fold. In the Czech lands, Protestants resisted the calendar imposed by the Habsburg Monarchy. In parts of Ireland, Catholic rebels until their defeat in the Nine Years' War kept the "new" Easter in defiance of the English-loyal authorities; later, Catholics practising in secret petitioned the Propaganda Fide for dispensation from observing the new calendar, as it signaled their disloyalty.

Mark

Thanks Mark for pointing out the error in my paper. You are correct that I relocated the chart incorrectly using EST instead of EDT. You are also correct that the new Ascendant has no effect on the delineation or analysis I drew from that figure.

I routinely use an editor for my online posts now; unfortunately neither of us caught the mistake. Other sets of eyes are always welcome. Will fix it shortly.

Thanks again.

Jupiter-Saturn: synodic cycle
03-May-1583 00:35:11 20pi10'53"
18-Dec-1603 06:54:28 08sa18'55"
16-Jul-1623 22:42:16 06le36'15"
24-Feb-1643 23:14:10 25pi06'44"
16-Oct-1663 23:49:13 12sa57'46"
24-Oct-1682 07:40:12 19le08'34"
09-Feb-1683 01:16:02 16le42'14"Rx
18-May-1683 05:46:47 14le30'11"
21-May-1702 20:57:39 06ar36'17"
05-Jan-1723 15:15:46 23sa19'04"
30-Aug-1742 20:52:29 27le09'10"
18-Mar-1762 16:41:42 12ar21'19"
05-Nov-1782 09:26:13 28sa06'59"
17-Jul-1802 22:48:28 05vi07'40"
19-Jun-1821 17:13:57 24ar38'58"
26-Jan-1842 06:11:57 08cp54'20"
21-Oct-1861 12:25:56 18vi22'11"
18-Apr-1881 13:38:05 01ta35'57"
28-Nov-1901 16:29:07 13cp59'49"
10-Sep-1921 04:13:48 26vi35'32"
08-Aug-1940 01:23:58 14ta27'26"
20-Oct-1940 04:36:53 12ta27'52" Rx
15-Feb-1941 06:36:49 09ta07'21"
19-Feb-1961 00:02:00 25cp12'03"
31-Dec-1980 21:23:08 09li29'56"
04-Mar-1981 19:07:18 08li06'28" Rx
24-Jul-1981 04:15:08 04li56'01"
28-May-2000 16:03:41 22ta43'17"
21-Dec-2020 18:21:24 00aq29'10"
31-Oct-2040 11:46:35 17li55'47"

mostly agree within 1 minute of the astrolog search(assuming those were truncated times)

near the retrograde, 2 minute difference at 1682
on the retrograde, 3 minute difference at 1981

so the computerized division search is not so bad as I 1st thought. Probably something like 5x more precise than the astropro list.



I assumed 28 May 2000 15:34:52 was true. (My bad)
28 May 2000 15:34:52 isn't right, it's not what SF can do.
(it says 28 May 2000 4:03:35pm GMT)

Sooo, ... use Solar Fire, if you make a dynamic report. You know, Transits to Transits. Aspect Selection: Harm01. edit Point Seletion-Transits so it's only going to show JU and SA

It's in "close enough" agreement. I wouldn't worry about 6 seconds or which is right. Because you can easily do what you want to do.

With the Dynamic Events Report list, you can highlite a list item then click View Chart, which will be better than posting a graphic...

Regulus Astrology wrote:

Thanks Mark for pointing out the error in my paper. You are correct that I relocated the chart incorrectly using EST instead of EDT. You are also correct that the new Ascendant has no effect on the delineation or analysis I drew from that figure.

Sorry to do this so publicly though. When I first highlighted your article I wasn't actually aware there was an error at all. I was just confused at the various times being offered in different sources. It was only when Ariondys offered his opinion on the accurate time I realised something was amiss. Otherwise I would have just contacted you privately about this.

I fully accept it didn't have any impact on how you commented on the chart. Still I do think it is very interesting that the correct JSC chart for 2000 (located for Washington DC) has this conjunction exactly on the MC of the chart.
Lots of interesting connections to various charts. For example, the chart ASC degree at 28 Leo is squaring the ASC of the Foundational Ingress chart and the Federal Government chart for 4th March 1789. Both of these charts are Scorpio rising. The conjunction in Taurus is also squaring these chart ascendants. The heavy stellium in Gemini is squaring various versions of the Sagittarius rising chart for July 4th 1776. Sun in the JSC chart on the 4th of July Uranus.

Mark

the new chart replicates the potusa chart that i like to use for the usa - april 30 1789, 1245 pm - nyc.. exact same angles to the degree in this chart fwiw..