Re: VMs: "Zodiac" signs and Regulus

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Pamela Richards <spirlhelix@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I thought you or someone said that there was a
> crowned
> nymph in Libra, one in Cancer, and one in Leo.  So
> far, that makes three crowned nypmhs, each
> illustrated
> on a page of the Zodiac representing, as you
> interpret
> it, a different "sign".  Why would they all
> represent the same star?

Normal star catalogues list the star's ecliptic
longitude. Paranatellonta are concerned with the
simultaneous rising of a star with a particular
degree of the zodiac (again expressed as longitude).

Such longitudes are traditionally expressed as:
(sign name) + (relative value from 0 to 30).
These are already two possible values that could
be shown in the VMs. Unfortunatly
for my theory, for Regulus they are the same.

But what if the author wanted to list data for two
epochs? Plenty of options to have the same
star twice.

About the Libra case (where the main star is only
seven points) I explained this previously
(culmination of Regulus).

If the Greeks used to refer to the star as 
Basiliskos, then the origin of the name Regulus
is less important.

> Or, what about the ones under magnitude one? 
> They are still brighter than magnitude 1 stars. 
> Don't they count?

They were defined as such only much later.
Ptolemy's catalogue was the reference for centuries.
A new magitude estimation was made by As-Sufi
around 900 or so (source: the same Robert van
Gent :-) ).
I never could lay hands on it.
The next catalogue is Ulugh Begh's from about 1420,
who worked in Samarkand (Persia). I don't know
if he made new magnitude estimations.

In my personal opinion, I could imagine the 
Voynich MS as a 'translation' of some existing
documents, which could refer to existing star
tables. The VMs author could have made his own,
but then it would seem to be lost.

Cheers, Rene



		
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