... When Julius Caesar established his calendar in 45 BC he set March 25 as the spring equinox. Since a Julian year (365.25 days) is slightly longer than an actual year the calendar drifted with respect to the equinox, such that the equinox was occurring on about 21 March in AD 300 and by AD 1500 it had reached 11 March. This drift induced Pope Gregory XIII to create a modern Gregorian calendar. The Pope wanted to restore the edicts concerning the date of Easter of the Council of Nicaea of AD 325. (Incidentally, the date of Easter itself is fixed by an approximation of lunar cycles used in the Hebraic calendar, but according to the historian Bede the English name 'Easter' comes from a pagan celebration by the Germanic tribes of the vernal - spring - equinox.) So the shift in the date of the equinox that occurred between the 4th and the 16th centuries was annulled with the Gregorian calendar, but nothing was done for the first four centuries of the Julian calendar. The days of 29 February of the years AD 100, AD 200, AD 300, and the day created by the irregular application of leap years between the assassination of Caesar and the decree of Augustus re-arranging the calendar in AD 8, remained in effect. This moved the equinox four days earlier than in Caesar's time ...

ANKAA = α Phoenicis, κ Phoenicis (5.0)

λ Phoenicis (6.3), β Tucanae (6.4)

*6.4 - *41.4 = *147.0 - 182.0 =

... Nut, whom the Greeks sometimes identified with Rhea, was goddess of the sky, but it was debatable if in historical times she was the object of a genuine cult. She was Geb's twin sister and, it was said, married him secretly and against the will of Ra. Angered, Ra had the couple brutally separated by Shu and afterwards decreed that Nut could not bear a child in any given month of any year. Thoth, Plutarch tells us, happily had pity on her. Playing draughts with the Moon, he won in the course of several games a seventy-second part of the Moon's light with which he composed five new days. As these five intercalated days did not belong to the official Egyptian calendar of three hundred and sixty days, Nut was thus able to give birth successively to five children: Osiris, Haroeris (Horus), Set, Isis and Nepthys ...

Hetu 1. To (make) sound; figuratively: famous, renowned. 2. To crumble into embers (of a bonfire). Hetu'u. Star, planet; hetu'u popohaga morning star; hetu'u ahiahi evening star; hetu'u viri meteorite. Vanaga. Hetu 1. Star (heetuu); hetu rere, meteor; hetu pupura, planet. P Pau.: hetu, star. Mgv.: etu, id. Mq.: fetu, hetu, id. Ta.: fetu, fetia, id. The alternative form fetia in Tahiti, now the only one in common use, need not be regarded as an anomaly in mutation. It seems to derive from Paumotu fetika, a planet. Its introduction into Tahiti is due to the fashion of accepting Paumotu vocables which arose when the house of Pomare came into power. 2. Capital letter (? he tu). 3. To amuse. 4. To stamp the feet. Hetuhetu, to calk, to strike the water. Hetuke, sea urchin. Churchill.

INTROMETIDA (Inserted) = ε Crucis (187.4), ACRUX = α Crucis (187.5)

γ Com. Berenicis (188.0), σ Centauri (188.1), ALGORAB = δ Corvi (188.5), GACRUX = γ Crucis (188.7)

γ Muscae (189.0), AVIS SATYRA (Bird of the Satyrs) = η Corvi (189.3), ASTERION (Starry) = β Canum Ven. (189.5), KRAZ = β Corvi, κ Draconis (189.7)

... Whittier said, in his Cry of a Lost Soul: 'The Cross of pardon lights the tropic skies'; which is correct for our day, as it is not now entirely visible above 27º 30' of north latitude. It was last seen on the horizon of Jerusalem - 31º 46' 45'' - about the time that Christ was crucified. But 3000 years previously all its stars were 7º above the horizon of the savages along the shores of the Baltic Sea, in latitude 52º 30' ... Von Humboldt adds: The two great stars, which marks the summit and the foot of the Cross, having nearly the same right ascension, it follows that the constellation is almost perpendicular at the moment when it passes the meridian. This circumstance is known to the people of every nation situated beyond the Tropics or in the southern hemisphere. It has been observed at what hour of the night, in different seasons, the Cross is erect or inclined. It is a time piece, which advances very regularly nearly four minutes a day, and no other group of stars affords to the naked eye an observation of time so easily made. How often have we heard our guides exclaim in the savannahs of Venezuela and in the desert extending from Lima to Truxillo, 'Midnight is past, the Cross begins to bend' ... Crux lies in the Milky Way, - here a brilliant but narrow stream three or four degrees wide, - and is noticeable from its compression as well as its form, being only 6º in extent from north to south, and less in width, the upper star a clear orange in color, and the rest white; the general effect being that of a badly made kite, rather than a cross ...