The signs which we find in the newspapers (Pisces,Aries,...etc), are real constellations such as Ursa Major and Ursa Minor,...etc. And you can see these signs in the sky by naked eyes, as a number of stars forming a specific form.

* Why are these signs special constellations ?

The Earth has two MAJOR motions:- The rotational motion around its axis and its orbital motion around the Sun. The first one is the reason why you see the Sun moves from East to West every day. Since the Sun is much nearer than the stars, the other motion makes the sun apparently move among the stars. As the Earth orbits the Sun once every nearly 365.25 days, thus its average speed is nearly 1 degree per day; the result of (360/365.25). We can't see the Sun's motion among the stars since we can't see the stars at daytime! But we can feel the influence of this motion, for example in Winter the Sun is lowest in the sky, while it is highest during Summer (as seen from the northern hemisphere). Actually this motion of the Sun is due to the Earth's orbital motion around the Sun, and while doing so, the Sun apparently moves through different constellations, depending on Earth's place in its orbit. For example if you put a stick in a room and you start moving around this stick, then if you look at the background of the stick, you may see the window, after a while, you will see the door as the background. See Fig.1.

Fig.1

Back to the Sun's motion, after one year (one complete revolution), the sun returns to the same star, starting another revolution. Now the Sun's path among the stars during this orbit can be represented as a line in the sky. This line is called The Ecliptic, and the constellations over which this line passes are called Signs of the zodiac (zodiacal constellations), thus, the only difference between the ordinary and the zodiacal constellations is the passage of the Ecliptic over them. As the Moon and the planets are nearly at the same plane, all of them are always near the Ecliptic, in a band called the Zodiac band, that is, a band of the sky extending 9 degrees on each side of the ecliptic, within which the Moon and the planets remain, except for Pluto which may lie 18 degrees away from the Ecliptic. See the band in Fig.2

Fig.2

* My Sign is Pisces, what does that mean ?

Simply that means: when you was born, the Sun was at the sign Pisces.

* Where is the problem ?

1. If you look at a star chart, you will see that the Ecliptic passes on a constellation called "Ophiuchus", consequently we have 13 Zodiacal constellations, but the ancient ASTROLOGERS didn't count it as a zodiacal constellation and they considered this area as a part of Scorpius, and they still do so till now !! See Fig.3.

   Fig.3

2. In the past there weren't boundaries between the constellations, and to give the zodiacal constellations rough boundaries, they divided the perimeter of the celestial sphere into their number (360/12), to give 30 degrees for each zodiacal constellation, and as the Sun moves one degree every day, it spends 30 days in each Sign. Recently, after the boundaries were introduced, it was realized that it is wrong to give each Sign 30 degrees exactly; for example, the length of the path that the Ecliptic crosses in Virgo is 44 degrees, while it is just 7 degrees in Scorpius. See Fig.3.

3. The boundaries confirms the Ophiuchus's right, since it became clear that Scorpius is mostly south of the ecliptic and the Sun spends more time in a region assigned to Ophiuchus.

4. The most serious problem is that the Sun doesn't enter the Signs at the same time every year!
   The time that the Sun needs to start a revolution from a star and to return to the same star is 365.2564 days (Sidereal Year), while the time that the Sun needs to make a one revolution on the ecliptic is 365.2422 (Tropical Year), this difference which is about 20 minutes is due to another slow motion of the Earth called "Precession": the Earth needs 25800 years to complete one revolution of this movement. In our life we adopt the tropical year and not the sidereal year, thus we will start the year while the Sun didn't reach the same star yet, it needs another 20 minutes to reach the star (neglecting the temporary difference between the "calendar year" (365 or 366 days) and the tropical year). Thousands of years ago, when astrologers invented the signs, they weren't aware of this motion, and they thought the sun returns to the same star at the same time, but we know now that this is wrong, and as the Signs were put thousands of year ago, this small difference now sums up to give dozens of days. As you have noticed that this problem is a continuos problem, thus the beginning of the Signs change continuously.

• We should know that the change of Signs is not introduced by people, it is pure natural.
• To know your Sign, it is completely not necessary to know where the Sun lies on your birthday THIS year. The only important thing is to know where it was in the year of your birthday.
• After reading this article, many people think that their Sign changed now, but this is not correct, your Sign is originally wrong since your birth. No person can have two signs in his life. e.g. two thousand years ago, if a person was born on March 6th, his sign would be Pisces, but if he was born on the same day in the twentieth, his sign must be Aquarius. .

* The times are UT.

• IPS Real Constellations Zodiac.
  
• Ophiuchus Zodiac.
  
• What's Your Sign ?