JOURNAL ARCHIVE: 10/19/2006 9:21 PM
I have also been thinking lately about a “memory” I have of Sirius. I asked Homer Burgess one time when I was a kid and I was on their farm in Antlers what was the meaning of the expression about “dog days of summer.” He told me it had something to do with rattlesnakes and you always needed to have a dog with you when you were in the woods during the summer, something about the rattlesnakes could not see during that time. Later I read that it had something to do with the Sirius star, also known as the Dog Star” being present in the sky during the summer. As I was writing this, I also remember the scene from “The Truman Show” with the Sirius star-lamp.
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 19 October 2006 excerpt ends]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Days
Wikipedia
Dog Days
"Dog Days" are the hottest, most sultry days of summer. In the Northern Hemisphere, the dog days of summer are most commonly experienced in the months of July and August, which typically observe the warmest summer temperatures. In the Southern Hemisphere, they typically occur in January and February, in the midst of the austral summer. The name comes from the ancient belief that Sirius, also called the Dog Star, in close proximity to the sun was responsible for the hot weather.
The name
The Romans referred to the dog days as diēs caniculārēs and associated the hot weather with the star Sirius. They considered Sirius to be the "Dog Star" because it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog). Sirius is also the brightest star in the night sky. The term "Dog Days" was used earlier by the Greeks (see, e.g., Aristotle's Physics, 199a2).
The Dog Days originally were the days when Sirius rose just before or at the same time as sunrise (heliacal rising), which is no longer true, owing to precession of the equinoxes. The Romans sacrificed a brown dog at the beginning of the Dog Days to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that the star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather.
Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, Quinto raged in anger, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies" according to Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813.
The modern French term for both this summer period (and for heat waves in general) "canicule", derives from this same term. It means "little dog", again referring to Sirius.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession_(astronomy)
Wikipedia
Axial precession (astronomy)
In astronomy, axial precession is a gravity-induced, slow and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body's rotational axis. In particular, it refers to the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth's axis of rotation, which, like a wobbling top, traces out a pair of cones joined at their apices in a cycle of approximately 26,000 years (called a Great or Platonic Year in astrology). The term "precession" typically refers only to this largest secular motion; other changes in the alignment of Earth's axis — nutation and polar motion — are much smaller in magnitude.
Earth's precession was historically called precession of the equinoxes because the equinoxes moved westward along the ecliptic relative to the fixed stars, opposite to the motion of the Sun along the ecliptic. This term is still used in non-technical discussions, that is, when detailed mathematics are absent. Historically, Hipparchus is credited with discovering precession of the equinoxes. The exact dates of his life are not known, but astronomical observations attributed to him by Ptolemy date from 147 BC to 127 BC.
With improvements in the ability to calculate the gravitational force between planets during the first half of the 19th century, it was recognized that the ecliptic itself moved slightly, which was named planetary precession as early as 1863, while the dominant component was named lunisolar precession. Their combination was named general precession instead of precession of the equinoxes. Lunisolar precession is caused by the gravitational forces of the Moon and Sun on Earth's equatorial bulge, causing Earth's axis to move with respect to inertial space. Planetary precession (actually an advance) is due to the small angle between the gravitational force of the other planets on Earth and its orbital plane (the ecliptic), causing the plane of the ecliptic to shift slightly relative to inertial space. Lunisolar precession is about 500 times larger than planetary precession. In addition to the Moon and Sun, the other planets also cause a small movement of Earth's axis in inertial space, making the contrast in the terms lunisolar versus planetary misleading, so in 2006 the International Astronomical Union recommended that the dominant component be renamed the precession of the equator and the minor component be renamed precession of the ecliptic, but their combination is still named general precession.
Effects
The precession of the Earth's axis has a number of observable effects. First, the positions of the south and north celestial poles appear to move in circles against the space-fixed backdrop of stars, completing one circuit in 25,772 Julian years (2000 rate). Thus, while today the star Polaris lies approximately at the north celestial pole, this will change over time, and other stars will become the "north star". As the celestial poles shift, there is a corresponding gradual shift in the apparent orientation of the whole star field, as viewed from a particular position on Earth.
[ Bill Gates-Microsoft-Corbis-Nazi the cowardly International Terrorist Organization violently against the United States federal government actively instigate insurrection and subversive activity against the United States federal government with all Bill Gates-Microsoft-Corbis-Nazi staff partners contributors employees contractors lawyers managers of any capacity as severely treasonous criminal accomplices and that are active unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States that actively make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in the United States and in the Severely Treasonous and Criminally Rebellious State of Washington by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings ]
http://www.tv.com/stargate-sg-1/children-of-the-gods-1/episode/7319/recap.html
tv.com
Stargate SG-1 [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
Season 1, Episode 1
Children of the Gods (1)
Air Date
Sunday July 27, 1997
Daniel explains that after a month of exploring he found a chamber with a star map that indicates there is a galactic network of Stargates. Sam notes that they tried hundreds of symbol permutations and it never worked. Daniel figures that 50,000 years of galactic expansion threw the map out of alignment, but Earth and Abydos were close enough that the coordinates remain the same. Adjusting for the Doppler shift, they can adjust the map to the current day.
