The Autumn Equinox in Brisbane

According to Astrolog, the March equinox of 2018 in Brisbane falls at a little before 2:16am on the 21st March. By a little, I mean less than a minute. A time of 2:15am shows the Sun in 29˚59'59" of Pisces ♓while a time of 2:16am shows the Sun ☉ in 0˚01'01'' of Aries ♈. So I'll go with the latter time because input only seems to be accepted in whole minutes. This produces the following chart:

The Brisbane chart shows Moon ☽ closely conjunct the Nadir and the North Node ☊ of the Moon ☽ closely conjunct the Descendant. The Moon ☽ is closely trine Saturn ♄ (0˚03' and separating) and Saturn ♄ in turn is closely semi-square Jupiter  ♃ (0˚35' separation and closing). The Moon ☽ /Saturn ♄ trine is even more harmonious given that Saturn ♄ is in its native sign and the Moon ☽ is exalted in Taurus ♉. I'm not sure what the significance of the square with Ceres might be (the separation is about 4 degrees, necessarily vague become Astrolog seems to consistently misreport the position of the asteroid with an error of around half a degree (see this earlier post about Ceres). This equinox is significant in that the Sun is closely conjunct Chiron in 28˚24' of Pisces ♓. Given that the period of revolution of Chiron is 50.42 years, this will only occur about every 25 years. Mars ♂ is square and Uranus ♅ is semi-sextile this conjunction.

I'm not sure how significant the March equinox chart is for the rest of the year but, in terms of mundane astrology, the Sun ☉ represents leadership, embodied by Putin, Trump, Xi Jinping and others. One or more of our world leaders may be battling (Mars ♂ square Sun ☉/Chiron) for survival after personal weaknesses (Sun ☉ conjunct Chiron) are exposed in sudden and surprising ways (Uranus ♅ semi-sextile Sun ☉/Chiron). The Moon ☽ represents the masses and for them the issues are very much material with both Saturn ♄ and the Moon ☽ being in Earth signs. There will be a collective need for belt tightening as governments struggle to cope with fiscal instability. Let's see how it all plays out.

Lilith

On the subject of Lilith, viewed from an astrological perspective, it is easy to be confused. Consider the following description taken from https://darkstarastrology.com/three-liliths/: 

There are three Liliths in astrology that you can place in your chart. We have Black Moon Lilith, Asteroid Lilith and the lesser known Dark Moon Lilith. I used to see them together as the Triple Moon Goddess and thought it made sense to use them in that way. I then found out that Demetra George had come up with a similar concept about Lilith, so I thought we might be onto something. Comparing the three Liliths to the bible story she says:

“The Asteroid Lilith describes the first stage in the mythical journey where she is suppressed, humiliated and flees in a fiery rage to the desolate wilderness. The Dark Moon Lilith depicts the pain of her exile where she plots and executes revenge. The Black Moon Lilith shows how she transmutes her distorted image back into its natural healthy expression

Not to be outdone, this site includes a fourth, Osculating Lilith:

• Black Moon Lilith is also known as Mean Lilith. This Lilith uses the average orbit of the theoretical Black Moon. This is why she is called mean Lilith. Mean refers to the average, not her temperament. 

• Asteroid Lilith is the only Lilith that is an actual, verifiable physical body. 

• Osculating Lilith is also called True Lilith. Her orbit oscillates wildly this is why she is called true Lilith. This Lilith uses the real orbit of the Black Moon. Her orbit is the real orbit of the Black Moon rather than an average. This is another theoretical point. Some people, like Juan Antonio Revilla, believe that she is the most important Lilith and most accurately portrays Lilith’s uncontrollable nature. 

• Dark Moon Lilith is also called the Waltemath Black Moon, or Waldemath Black Moon. Some people have claimed to have seen this Moon, but those claims cannot be substantiated.

To find your Liliths, go to Astro.com, free horoscopes, extended chart selection and scroll to the bottom of the page. Copy and paste these numbers into the empty box on the bottom left side of the screen: 1181, H13, H21, H58
Press “Click here to show the chart.”

• Asteroid Lilith: 1181
• Osculating Lilith/ True Lilith: h13
• Black Moon Lilith/ Mean Lilith: h21
• Dark Moon Lilith/ Waldemath Black Moon: h58

The fixed star Algol (associated with Lilith) is at a fairly steady 26˚ Taurus. Algol is a star in the head of Medusa in the constellation Perseus.

I tried it and it works fine. However, an astrological chart is already cluttered enough. We have the luminaries (Sun and Moon) and the planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) as well as the recently demoted, dwarf planet Pluto. It's quite common to include Chiron, one of the Centaurs, and perhaps Ceres, the largest of the asteroids orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. These astronomical bodies are located within the circle of the zodiac and the circle of houses, all mutually interacting by casting various aspects to one another. To introduce one Lilith, let alone three or four, will complicate things even more, so there needs to be a good reason for doing this. Let's see if the inclusion of one, two, three or even four Liliths can really be justified.

Let's start with asteroid Lilith because it's the most straightforward to deal with. Here are some astronomical facts about the asteroid taken from Wikipedia:

1181 Lilith, provisional designation 1927 CQ, is a metallic asteroid from the middle region of the asteroid belt, approximately 23 kilometres in diameter. It was discovered on 11 February 1927, by Russian–French astronomer Benjamin Jekhowsky at Algiers Observatory in Algeria, Northern Africa, and named after French composer Lili Boulanger. The asteroid orbits the Sun in the middle main-belt at a distance of 2.1–3.2 AU once every 4 years and 4 months (1,587 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.20 and an inclination of 6° with respect to the ecliptic.

In terms of asteroid size, Lilith is rather puny. Ceres, the largest asteroid in the belt has a diameter of about 945 kilometres and can be spotted with a pair of binoculars. Other large asteroids include Pallas Athena, Juno and Vesta, all measuring in the hundreds of kilometres. It doesn't seem logical to assign too much importance to this little asteroid. I personally wouldn't include it in a chart analysis. The Dark Moon Lilith, also known as the Waltemath or Waldemath Black Moon, I would also dismiss because it's not really been proven to exist.

So that leaves us with the Black Moon Lilith (also known an Mean Lilith) and Osculating Lilith (also known as True Lilith). Let's try to differentiate between the two of these. A diagram will help:

The eccentricity of the Moon's orbit is highly exaggerated in the diagram above but it illustrates the idea behind the Black Moon. An ellipse has two foci: the Earth occupies one focus and other focus is empty. The line of sight from the centre of the Earth to this empty focus points to a position on the ecliptic and this should mark the position of the Black Moon Lilith. This empty focus is about 36,000 kilometres from Earth so it's not far away and, because of its proximity, there is a not inconsiderable difference between its geocentric and topocentric position in the zodiac.

What complicates the matter even more is that the Moon doesn't simply move around the Earth in a simple ellipse. What happens is that The Earth and the Moon both orbit around the centre of mass of the Earth and Moon. This is called the Earth-Moon Barycentre or EMB. It is about 4,671 km from the centre of the Earth or about 1,700 km below the Earth's surface. It is described further at the same site from where the diagram was taken:

The Moon travels along an elliptical path around the Earth. An ellipse has two focal points, and the other focal point, not occupied by the Earth has been called the Dark Moon, the Black Moon or Lilith. This is a slightly simplified definition, since, actually, the Moon and the Earth both move around their common centre of gravity, and the path of the Moon is not a neat ellipse, but a rather wobbly affair. One must distinguish between the mean orbit of the Moon, which is a slowly elongating ellipse, and the actual orbit, which vaccillates around the mean path, due to interference of various kinds. Just as there a "mean" and a "true" Lunar Node, so there is a "mean" and a "true" ellipse and a "mean" and a "true" Lilith. I write "true" in inverted commas, because the Moon's Node is only "true" about twice per month, when the Moon is actually on it, for the rest of the time, it is as "untrue" as the mean Node. In fact, when working with a point so close to the Earth, one should also take the great parallax into consideration, i.e. consider, from which point on the Earth one is actually looking at a point in the heavens. Astrology observes the planets geocentrically, as if from the Earth's centre, and not topocentrically, from the actual place of the observer.

This is getting complicated. Clearly the True Lilith is to be preferred over the Mean Lilith but is the inclusion of this difficult to calculate point in a chart really justified? I really don't think so. My feeling is that there's been a push to promote Lilith by one means or another because in the Hebrew tradition she is such a powerful figure (taken from Wikipedia):

Lilith is a figure in Jewish mythology, developed earliest in the Babylonian Talmud (3rd to 5th centuries). Lilith is often envisioned as a dangerous demon of the night, who is sexually wanton, and who steals babies in the darkness. The character is generally thought to derive in part from a historically far earlier class of female demons in ancient Mesopotamian religion, found in cuneiform texts of Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, and Babylonia. 

In Jewish folklore, from the satirical book Alphabet of Sirach (c. 700–1000) onwards, Lilith appears as Adam's first wife, who was created at the same time (Rosh Hashanah) and from the same dirt as Adam – compare Genesis 1:27. (This contrasts with Eve, who was created from one of Adam's ribs: Genesis 2:22.) The legend developed extensively during the Middle Ages, in the tradition of Aggadah, the Zohar, and Jewish mysticism. For example, in the 13th-century writings of Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen, Lilith left Adam after she refused to become subservient to him and then would not return to the Garden of Eden after she had coupled with the archangel Samael.

With the exception of Venus, all of the planets are male: Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune. Pluto is male as well of course. While the asteroid Ceres and the dwarf planet Eris are female, there is certainly a shortage of objects named after strong females in the traditional astrological chart. I've recently taken to including Ceres in my chart analysis but I won't personally include Lilith in any of her variants at the moment.

The Dwarf Planet Eris

I'm currently reading Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs by Lisa Randall and in that book she makes mention of the recently discovered dwarf planet Eris. In this post, I'm finding out a little more about it. It has the following characteristics:

• diameter of 2,326 ± 12 kilometres
• slightly smaller than Pluto's diameter of 2,372 ± 4 kilometres
• mass is 0.27% that of Earth (would be 0.61% if same composition)
• mass is about 27% larger than that of Pluto (hence it is rockier)
• highly eccentric orbit (0.44 with aphelion of 97.651 AU and perihelion of 37.911 AU)
• orbital period of 558.04 years
• has one known moon, Dysnomia, with a diameter of 700±120 kilometres
• may be in a 17:5 resonance with Neptune although is not confirmed
• has an albedo of 0.96, higher than that of any other large body in the Solar System except Enceladus
• classified as a TNO (TransNeptunian Object) and SDO (Scattered Disk Object)
• classified as a plutoid or ice dwarf and a trans-Neptunian dwarf planet, i.e. a body orbiting beyond Neptune that is massive enough to be rounded in shape. 
• its orbit is titled at about 44˚ to the ecliptic

Here is a diagram of its orbit taken from Wikipedia:

From an astrological perspective, the following excerpt from the Wikipedia entry is relevant:

Because of the high inclination of its orbit, Eris only passes through a few constellations of the traditional Zodiac; it is now in the constellation Cetus. It was in Sculptor from 1876 until 1929 and Phoenix from roughly 1840 until 1875. In 2036 it will enter Pisces and stay there until 2065, when it will enter Aries. It will then move into the northern sky, entering Perseus in 2128 and Camelopardalis (where it will reach its northernmost declination) in 2173.

What of the mythological significance of Eris and Dynomia? This astrologically relevant website has this to say about them:

Eris is the Greek god of strife. Due to her exclusion from the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, a sea-goddess, spiteful Eris, aroused lust and conflict amongst the goddesses (Hera/power, Athena/wealth, and Aphrodite/love, beauty and rapture) which led to the Trojan war by offering a "golden apple" to the fairest of the three. In short, Zeus proclaimed Paris, the handsome prince of Troy, to act as judge. Paris choose Aphrodite with her promise that Helen, the wife of Menelaus, would become his wife. This ultimately led to the abduction of Helen by Paris and subsequently the 10-year long Trojan war (1194 to 1184 BC.) and its ramifications. (Ref: Iliad & Odyssey)

Eris' daughter, Dysnomia ... is said to be the "spirit of lawlessness"—disrupter of civil order. Eris, however, had two daughters, Dysnomia and the opposite and peaceable one, Eunomia, who ends strife, returns order and maintaines social stability. 

The author of this same website has some interesting things to say about the discovery of Eris challenging patriarchal society:

The discovery and naming of Eris confronts patriarchal authority in a few ways. Provisionally as Xena and then formally as Eris, the female names directly confront our solar system's male dominance, as all major planets have male names, except for Venus. The creation of the Dwarf Planet category also rightfully raised the status of Ceres, mother of the asteroids (a female), as a Dwarf Planet, now at par with Eris and Pluto. Eris also put an end to Pluto delineating the planetary boundary to our solar system, the final masculine planet of death, giving the final word, and hiding what lies beyond. Pluto now is but a gate keeper to more transcendent realms of consciousness.

In fact, the author, Nick Anthony Fiorenza, has written several other articles about Eris including:

• The Path of Eris & The Eris Synodic Cycles 2003 - 2016
• Eris, The Great Disrupter, Revati & the Global Economic Crisis of 2008
• Disclosure & Discovery. New Frontiers in Consciousness 2016-2017. Uranus-Eris opposite Haumea

I should read these and perhaps make additions to this blog post later. The article that I did read and have quoted from here was certainly interesting despite suffering from some horrific misspellings as well as chronic verbosity and a proclivity to astro-babble.

Astrolog does not track the position of Eris but this website does, along with Centaurs, TNOs, Asteroids & Planets. Interestingly, just a quick look at the site shows that the exact placement of Ceres is still a problem depending on who you believe. The site just alluded to lists its position today (22nd February 2018) as being in 6˚56' of Leo while Astrolog reports 6˚47 of Leo and Stellarium reports 7˚26' of Leo.

Stellar Distances

This post has more to do with astronomy than astrology but I firmly believe that the best way to defend astrology from its detractors is to have a solid understanding of astronomy. Many critics of astrology have a poor understanding of astronomy and arguments, for example, that astrology does not take the precession of the equinoxes into account when formulating horoscopes can be easily refuted. Recently, with access to a deck that affords a good view of the night sky, I've been using the software program Stellarium to identify the more prominent celestial objects. This is the same program that Graham Hancock uses to view the sky as it appeared in Egypt and other places in antiquity thousands of years ago. He mentioned this in his latest book, Magicians of the Gods, that I just finished reading.

I like to know how far various stars and nebula are from our solar system and Stellarium reveals this immediately. By just clicking on the object, an information pane appears on the left of the screen. In the diagram below, I've listed the major stars in the constellation of Canis Major along with their distances to the nearest light year:

As can be seen, with the exception of Sirius, all the major stars are fairly distant. Sirius of course is an object of considerable fascination for stargazers of the past and present. Here is some information about it taken from Wikipedia.

Sirius, a romanisation of Greek Σείριος, Seirios, lit. "glowing" or "scorching") is a star system and the brightest star in the Earth's night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The system has the Bayer designation Alpha Canis Majoris (α CMa). What the naked eye perceives as a single star is a binary star system, consisting of a white main-sequence star of spectral type A0 or A1, termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion of spectral type DA2, called Sirius B. The distance separating Sirius A from its companion varies between 8.2 and 31.5 AU. 

Sirius appears bright because of its intrinsic luminosity and its proximity to Earth. At a distance of 2.6 parsecs (8.6 ly), as determined by the Hipparcos astrometry satellite, the Sirius system is one of Earth's near neighbours. Sirius is gradually moving closer to the Solar System, so it will slightly increase in brightness over the next 60,000 years. After that time its distance will begin to increase and it will become fainter, but it will continue to be the brightest star in the Earth's night sky for the next 210,000 years. 

Sirius A is about twice as massive as the Sun (M☉) and has an absolute visual magnitude of 1.42. It is 25 times more luminous than the Sun but has a significantly lower luminosity than other bright stars such as Canopus or Rigel. The system is between 200 and 300 million years old. It was originally composed of two bright bluish stars. The more massive of these, Sirius B, consumed its resources and became a red giant before shedding its outer layers and collapsing into its current state as a white dwarf around 120 million years ago. 

Sirius is also known colloquially as the "Dog Star", reflecting its prominence in its constellation, Canis Major (Greater Dog). The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt and the "dog days" of summer for the ancient Greeks, while to the Polynesians in the Southern Hemisphere the star marked winter and was an important reference for their navigation around the Pacific Ocean.

Below are the major stars and nebulae for the constellation of Orion, along with their distances in light years:

Again, all the stars are reasonably distant but I was surprised to learn the Great Nebula in Orion was actually within our own galaxy and so I've included some information about it from Wikipedia. I'm sure I'll learn a lot more as I continue viewing the night sky in tandem with the astronomy software.

Limitations of the 2-D Horoscope

While looking at the current zodiacal position at Sirius using Astrolog, I was surprised to find that it was conjunct Canopus. These two brightest stars in the night sky are quite separate and yet they appear together in the two dimensional wheel generated by the astrology program. The reason of course is that the celestial longitudes of the two stars are being considered and their celestial latitudes, while being displayed by the program, cannot be represented on the chart. Here is the situation as displayed by Astrolog:

The information on the right shows that Canopus has a latitude of -75˚49' and Sirius has a latitude of -39˚36'. However, the view using Stellarium drives home how far apart the two stars really are (the red line represents the ecliptic, the blue line represents the celestial equator):

A planet, moving as it does close to ecliptic, will reach the same longitude as Canopus at some point in time and the two will then be deemed to be conjunct. This seems silly. I think such stars as Sirius and Canopus, because of their large latitudes, should not be included in an astrological chart and of course for the most part they aren't. The stars of the zodiacal constellations however, are a different matter. I covered the astrological significance of the big four (Regulus, Fomalhaut, Antares and Aldebaran) in an earlier post on the fixed stars.

I'm wondering if there is an effective way of representing latitude on an astrological chart. I've made an initial attempt of such a chart. It's just a crude beginning, but a beginning nonetheless. It shows a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn with the dot positions giving a rough idea of the latitude separation of the two planets. Saturn is about 2 degrees north latitude and Jupiter is about 3 degrees south latitude. It also shows two stars that are conjunct in terms of longitude (like Canopus and Sirius) but quite separate in terms of latitude. The length of the line should give some indication of the magnitude of the latitude but a linear scale wouldn't work. Something logarithmic would work better. Perhaps an inner and outer dotted circle at the same distance from the green and blue circles but representing 25 degrees. 

Topocentric versus Geocentric

I think that astrological programs like Astrolog report the celestial longitude and latitude of astronomical objects from a geocentric perspective whereas an astronomical program like Stellarium reports it from a topocentric perspective. How large are the differences between these two systems of measurement. I'll explore this by reference to my own natal chart.

For my natal Moon, Stellarium gives a topocentric longitude of 59°32'42.4" or 29°32'42.4" Taurus. Astrolog gives a geocentric figure of 29°26'22" Taurus. This is a difference of slightly more than six minutes of arc. This isn't much but it could constitute a difference of sign if applied to my natal Saturn in 0°00'47" Virgo. Fortunately, this is not the case. Stellarium reports a topocentric longitude of 0°00'41.9" for Saturn. This is a difference of only about 5 seconds of arc.

I'll list the differences comprehensively below with Astrolog listed first and Stellarium second (measurements are rounded to the nearest second):

Sun -->        12°47'13" versus 12°47'51"
Moon -->      29°26'22" versus 29°32'42"
Mercury -->  2°14'36" versus 2°15'11"
Venus -->     9°09'42" versus 9°10'17"
Mars -->       9°15'54" versus 9°16'27"
Jupiter -->   28°47'00" versus 28°47'15"
Saturn -->    0°00'47" versus 0°00'42"
Uranus -->  26°52'14" versus 26°52'29"
Neptune -->13°15'24" versus 13°15'12"
Pluto -->     14°16'26" versus 14°16'24"
Chiron -->    8°57'05" versus NOT FOUND
Ceres -->   11°34'23" versus 8°41'52"

The glaring difference in positions is apparent for Ceres. I've checked carefully and that discrepancy of almost three degrees is very real and very disconcerting. What's gone wrong? What program is in error and why? Given that Ceres is between Mars and Jupiter, the difference should be measured in seconds of arc. Let's check the differences between the two program's for Ceres today (14th February 2018): Astrolog gives 8°13'07" Leo whereas Stellarium gives 8°54'06" Leo, which is a smaller discrepancy than in my natal chart.

For the time being, leaving out Ceres, the differences between the two sets of measurements is slight but significantly greatest where the position of the Moon is concerned. For a lunar position that is greater than 29°50" or less than 0°10" of a sign, the geocentric position should be checked against the topocentric to determine whether a change of sign is involved. If so, I would say that the topocentric measurement that should be used and not the geocentric.

As for Ceres, it will be useful to check some other asteroids as well, namely Juno, Vesta and Pallas. In my natal chart, Pallas is located at 29°09'00" Gemini according to Astrolog, while Stellarium puts it as 29°38'17" (almost a half degree different and much larger than the discrepancy between the Moon's positions). Vesta is located at 23°42'21" Sagittarius using Astrolog but 21°42"00' using Stellarium (a difference of a full two degrees). Juno is located at 27°16'47" Taurus using Astrolog but at 28°23'11" using Stellarium (a difference of more than a degree). So for the asteroids at least, there are significant differences between the celestial longitudes as reported by the two programs. This is not due to a differences between topocentric and geocentric positions. These should be slight. The difference is due to a software bug.

What is happening with Ceres on a day to day basis according to Stellarium? As mentioned earlier, it is currently in 8°54'06" Leo, so I'll track its weekly progress:

21st February: Stellarium 7°32'20" Leo versus Astrolog 7°01'01" retrograde
28th February: Stellarium 6°26'41" Leo versus Astrolog 5°54'55" retrograde
7th March: Stellarium 5°40'08" Leo versus Astrolog 5°07'49" retrograde
15th March: Stellarium 5°12'42" Leo versus Astrolog 4°39'22" retrograde
19th March: Stellarium 5°08'57" Leo versus Astrolog 4°35'35" Leo stationary direct
22nd March: Stellarium 5°10'58" Leo versus Astrolog 4°37'18" direct
29th March: Stellarium 5°30'25" Leo versus Astrolog 4°56'06" direct

Stellarium and Astrolog both report Ceres turning stationary direct on the 19th March, it's only that there is a consistent difference of about half a degree between positions on any given date. I suspect that the Astrolog software is in error with the error increasing as one travels back in time. For the time, it is sufficient to add about 30 minutes to the position as reported by Astrolog. I'll try to find out more about the source of this problem.

Canopus

I've been taking more interest in the night sky lately and using Stellarium it's been easy to identify the major stars. In this post I'll examine some of the facts and related information about the star Canopus. In my natal chart, the star is located at 14˚16' Cancer, forming a T-square with the Sun and Neptune.

The only problem with this placement is that Canopus is nowhere near the ecliptic and needs to be mapped on to it by drawing an arc from its position in the sky that meets the ecliptic at a right angle This is shown in the diagram below:

This is the problem that bedevils the two dimensional horoscope. The ecliptic is the backbone of a chart but only rarely are astronomical objects located exactly on it. In most cases, they are at some distance from it and need to be mapped on to it as has been done for Canopus in the diagram above.

How exactly is this mapping done? Well, an astronomical object's position can be measured in terms of celestial longitude and celestial latitude. The latter shows the angular distance of the object from the ecliptic. The former measures the object's angular distance from its orthogonal projection on the ecliptic to the First Point of Aries. It is the celestial longitude of an object that is considered when placing it in the two dimensional horoscope.

This celestial latitude however, is displayed in the Astrolog chart. For example, in my natal chart shown earlier, the longitude of Canopus can be read to the right of the longitude. It is -75°50', the negative sign indicating south latitude. Stellarium also shows this information but from a topocentric rather than geocentric perspective. The difference between these two positions would be very slight for fixed stars but would be most significant for the Moon. The magnitude of the difference for the Moon will be explored in a future post. Stellarium shows that the latitude of Canopus tonight, 14th February 2018 at 8:38pm, is -75°49'25.4" and its longitude is 105°13'31.1" (or 15°13'31.1" Cancer).

Here are some interesting astronomical facts about Canopus (from Wikipedia):

• it is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina (Alpha Carinae)
• it is the second-brightest star in the night-time sky, after Sirius
• it is 310 light years distant
• it has a radius 71 times that of the Sun
• it is a circumpolar star when seen from points with latitude south of 37°18' S
• its northern limit of visibility is latitude 37°18' N

Here is a shot of Canopus as it appears in Stellarium:

The constellation Carina is described as follows in Wikipedia:

Carina is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for the keel of a ship, and it was formerly part of the larger constellation of Argo Navis (the ship Argo) until that constellation was divided into three pieces, the other two being Puppis (the poop deck), and Vela (the sails of the ship).

Carina was once a part of Argo Navis, the great ship of Jason and the Argonauts who searched for the Golden Fleece. The constellation of Argo was introduced in ancient Greece. However, due to the massive size of Argo Navis and the sheer number of stars that required separate designation, Nicolas Louis de Lacaille divided Argo into three sections in 1763, including Carina (the keel). In the 19th century, these three became established as separate constellations, and were formally included in the list of 88 modern IAU constellations in 1930. Lacaille kept a single set of Greek letters for the whole of Argo, and separate sets of Latin letter designations for each of the three sections. Therefore, Carina has the α, β and ε, Vela has γ and δ, Puppis has ζ, and so on.

Here's some information about the astrological significance of Canopus (source):

Astrologically, the keywords for Canopus, the keel, are: the navigator and the pathfinder and it is linked to the story of the Argo and the rescue of Helen of Troy but there is much more to Canopus. When linked to natal planets, Ptolemy associated the star with Saturn and Jupiter, Robson with 'piety, conservatism, and turning evil into good'. Ebertin connects Canopus to 'a love of travel' while Rigor adds the more negative potential of 'domestic problems'. 

(Ex: if the natal planet linked to Canopus is fussy Mars, the potential for domestic problems would be more likely to occur due to conflicts and quarrels.)

Some cultures, including certain Native American tribes, linked the precession of Canopus with timing the end of the world, and other ancient cultures considered it the weight at the end of the plumb line that defined earth's poles so that the plumb line's movement explained the effects of precession on Canopus, sometimes known as the Point of Stillness in the south. Plus, the star was once worshiped in desert cultures as the Star of Egypt (instead of Sirius!) and in China, the red star is associated with happiness, success, and a long life which makes it the Star of Old Age. 

For as Brady's Book of Fixed Stars relates, "In about 6,000 B.C.E. {Canopus} was the heliacal rising star for the autumn equinox and a series of temples were built in Egypt in alignment with these risings. Modern people see this star now being claimed by NASA, as they use this ancient location point as a navigational aid for spacecraft." Canopus--still the navigator! 

In natal horoscopes, Canopus (14 Cancer) is a powerful star which can provide leadership skills. New directions may be inspired by Canopus which acts in similar fashion as the royal stars which always include a 'caution' (ex: royal Regulus: success if revenge is avoided--otherwise all gains will be lost). With Canopus linked to a natal chart, success is possible but its caution lies within the flaw of needing too much control.