The 2014 path (lower right) of the Sun across the constellation Ophiuchus. Credit: Stellarium.

It happens to all lovers of astronomy sooner or later.

I once had a friend who was excited about an upcoming conjunction of Saturn and Venus. They were passing closer than the apparent diameter of the Full Moon in the dawn sky, and you could fit em both in the same telescopic field of view. I invited said friend to stop by at 5 AM the next morning to check this out. I was excited to see this conjunction as well, but not for the same reasons.

Said friend was into astrology, and Im sure that the conjunction held a deep significance in their world view. Sure, I could have easily told them that astrology is bunk, and the skies care not for our terrestrial woes or I could carefully help guide this at risk friend towards the true wonders of the cosmos if they were willing to listen.

We bring this up because this weekend, the Sun enters the constellation Ophiuchus, one of 13 modern constellations that it can appear in from our Earthly vantage point.

If youre born from November 30th to December 18th, you could consider yourself an Ophiuchian, or being born under the sign of Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer. But Ill leave it up to you to decide what they might be like.

Seen at the Albany Park Zoo: Herpetology, or a modern day serpent bearer? Photo by author.

You might remember how the controversy of the 13th sign made its news rounds a few years back. Hey, it was cool to at least see an obscure and hard to pronounce constellation trending on Twitter. Of course, this wasnt news to space enthusiasts, and to modern astronomers, a house is merely where you live, and a sign is what you follow to get there.

The modern 88 constellations we use were formalized by the International Astronomical Union in 1922. Like political boundaries, theyre imaginary constructs we use to organize reality. Star patterns slowly change with time due to our solar systems motion and that of neighboring stars about the galactic center.

Astrologers will, of course, counter that their craft follows a tropical scheme versus a sidereal cosmology. In the tropical system, ecliptic longitude 0 starts from the equinoctial point marking the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, and the zodiac is demarcated by 12 houses 30 degrees on a side.

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Heres Your Sign: Are You an Ophiuchian?