What constellation was the sun actually in on april 3rd 1992?

Your astrological sign given to you by astrology probably isn't the constellation that you were actually born under.|||You are probably right since astrology is pure superstition. BTW, you posted in the wrong section.|||Constellation: Pisces


Sign: Aries





The "astrological signs" are not the constellations. The "signs" are simply thirty degree bands of ecliptic longitude. They are named after the constellations that were aligned with them thousands of years.





Most people who have studied astronomy are quite unaware that the zodiacal signs were used by the world's best astronomers right up through the beginning of the 19th century (not some dark age but well after Isaac Newton, the birth of modern science, the Enlightenment, and so on). So for example, in the official "Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris" issued by the British government and widely regarded as the most prestigious, official ephemerides available worldwide in that era, the ecliptic longitudes of the planets were given in tables with headings "S.D.M.S." That's "sign, degrees, minutes, and seconds". Real astronomers employed the zodiacal signs. This doesn't mean in the slightest way that they believed in astrology. It was just a quick shorthand for giving a planet's position. If you said "Jupiter is at Aries 15", it meant that the position of Jupiter along the ecliptic was 15 degrees into the sign of Aries, not the constellation Aries, but rather the first sign of the zodiac. In modern terms, we would simply say that the ecliptic longitude of Jupiter is 15 degrees. One remaining vestige of this in modern astronomy is the expression "first point of Aries" which is used as a colorful name for the zero point in several standard astronomical coordinate systems.





As for the specific answer to this question, it could depend on how we define the constellations. The modern constellation boundaries, settled by the IAU, are less than a century old. They are quite arbitrary, by design. In this case, however, there's little ambiguity. That's the constellation Pisces. The zodiacal sign of the Sun's position on that date, and again, this is NO MORE and NO LESS than a name for a thirty degree band of ecliptic longitude, was Aries.|||Pisces.



And for questions about astrology, you should probably ask at the Horoscopes forum, under Entertainment. This forum is about Astronomy (the science) and not Astrology (the superstition).|||Pisces.





The zodiac is "off" by one month because of 2000 to 4000 years of precession of the the vernal equinox through the zodiac. That's why good star charts always have some indication of which "era" they apply to. Star charts are updated periodically because of the 25,570 year precession cycle of the Earth's rotational axis. When the Egyptians were in power, the north star was Thuban in Draco, not Polaris in Ursa Minor like it is today.|||The Sun was squarely in the constellation Pisces. But you should already know, if you know anything about astrology.



However, this is Astronomy and Space, a science, not a pseudo-science.|||Sagittarius and thats not the pseudo science of astrology