Another way to see the effect of the precession of the Earth's axis is in astrology. What's your sign? It's the constellation in which the sun stands on the day of your birthday. It's easy to see that: go up into the stratosphere in a balloon, and you'll see both the stars and the sun. Identify the constellation in which the sun stands, and there's your sign. So, my birthday is September 7, and my sign is Virgo. But every time I go up to the stratosphere on my birthday, what do I see? The sun is smack dab in the middle of Leo. Now I don't know anything about astrology, and trust me I don't want to, but a possible explanation would be this: the zodiac moves relative to the sun by about one constellation every 2150 years (25800 years for a full rotation), due to the precession of Earth's axis. So my best guess is that they made up the astrological signs about 2000 years ago and forgot all about precession.
That's correct. The zodiac has precessed relative to the seasons. This is the definition of the "Age of Aquarius": that the sun is currently in Aquarius at the time of each vernal equinox, even though by historical definition the vernal equinox should occur at the border from Pisces to Aries. The sun has shifted by 1.5 constellations since the ancient originations of astrology.
