At 11:35 8/30/99 , Wayne Harridge wrote:
>And don't forget - It is only the Autumnal Equinox in the northern
>hemisphere - Spring down here.
>
>Wayne Harridge
>Ivanhoe, Victoria, Australia
>http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Louvre/6152/
Yep. Both you and Acer are correct in its "common" usage to mark seasonal
change. The convention in astronomical texts is arbitrarily (?) northern
hemisphere "centric" to prevent confusion. (I know, it's unfair!)
Actually I prefer in scientific usage to see "Ascending Equinox" for the
one in March and "Descending Equinox" for the one in September. Still
northern hemisphere "centric" but always struck me as a little less so than
the Latin seasonal reference.
So if it's more acceptable to those "Down Under" can we call it the
Descending Equinox instead?
BTW I plan to keep the OM-4 and 50/1.2 in the camera bag on that day and
use the OM-10 with 50/1.8 (SC) which was my first SLR 20 years ago . . .
and recently returned from John H. with a very nice CLA and new foam seals.
Some trivia for Acer and others into rock music. The Ascending Equinox
establishes the zero "latitude" for the celestial spherical coordinate
system and is called the "First Point in Aries." It is a misnomer now
because it pointed toward that star in Aries several millenia ago. This
point has a 25,725 year precession (recession is more correct) around the
Earth's orbit about the sun. It is now moving through Pisces toward
Aquarius which is what the reference in the musical "Hair" to the "Age of
Aquarius" was about. However, the guys touting the Age of Aquarius in the
late 1960's were nearly half a millenia off! It will not enter Aquarius
until about the year 2400.
-- John
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