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Ephemeris: 09/18/2023 – Saturn the planet and the god of old age

September 18, 2023 Comments off

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Monday, September 18th. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 23 minutes, setting at 7:48, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:26. The Moon, halfway from new to first quarter, will set at 9:14 this evening.

The planet Saturn is named after the Roman God of agriculture. He is often depicted as an old man with a scythe. It happens that Saturn is the most distant of the naked eye planets and as such takes nearly 30 years to totter its way around the Zodiac signifying his old age. Saturn is also depicted as Father Time at New Year’s Eve being replaced by the New Year’s baby. Saturn is the Roman Equivalent of the Greek god Cronus, where we get time related words like chronology, chronometer. The planet that is Saturn, appears to be the only planet referred to specifically in the Bible as being the closest planet to heaven. The goddess Ishtar, an equivalent of Venus, is mentioned as the “Queen of Heaven” in Jeremiah (Jer 7:18; 44:19), but not as a planet. The only mention of Venus is in its morning apparition as Lucifer, the Son of Morning, who is also equated with Satan.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT –4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

It takes 29.45 years for Saturn to orbit the Sun, and since the Earth is much closer to the Sun than Saturn, that’s about how long it takes to travel through the constellations of the Zodiac. The tick marks in Saturn’s path are 15 days apart. Saturn travels generally eastward in the sky, however when Saturn is on the same side of the Sun as the Earth, it appears to move backward, or retrograde, to the west for a time. This is due to Earth’s more rapid motion in its orbit, compared to Saturn. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts), annotations made by using LibreOffice Draw.
Categories: Ephemeris Program, Mythology, Planets Tags: