Magical is the right word! ✨ The armillary sphere is fascinating. It helps understand planetary motion and the seasons.

Thanks for the comment, Carlos! You have an eagle eye. The sphere sits loose in the stand, meaning you can take it out and switch its direction. In the video, I took the sphere setup from the picture on the box of the model as an example, which is the best way to get the text on the stand and the ecliptic with the planets and the other rings in the frame. This apocalyptic setup has been swiftly corrected after filming. We should be safe now. :)

I´m sorry, I erased your comment by mistake! In any case, thank you for your beautiful post. I built a similar model, for instructional purposes; but Im under the impression that the kit came with that small mistake, since the ecliptic longitude should increase eastwards. I just wanted to confirm if it really was a mistake, or maybe I´m just confused.

@@Zappa8891 My comment is still there, Carlos. You didn't delete it. I now know what you mean. And you are right; the kit comes with an error. The ecliptical degrees increase backward from Aries to Pisces, to Aquarius, etc. The equinoxes are marked correctly with 0° Aries and 180° Libra, respectively. However, the solstices have their degrees switched. The summer solstice (Cancer) should be at 90° ecliptical longitude, and the winter solstice (Capricorn) should be at 270° ecliptical longitude. Thank you for pointing this out! I appreciate your time and effort in commenting very much! 🙏🏻

But also Aries is no longer spring due to the precession of the equinoxes. Therefore this kit sadly depicts astrological remants rather than accurate astronomical markings.

Signs and constellations are two different things. The March equinox (also called Aries point, 0° ecliptic longitude) marks the start of the tropical zodiac beginning with the first thirty degrees we call Aries regardless of where the intersection of the Sun's path and the celestial equator happens against the backdrop of the constellations. Constellations are of different sizes. The twelve sections of the ecliptic are always thirty degrees and were named after the constellations during a time when the March equinox happened roughly at the beginning of the constellation of Aries. We could also refer to each of the twelve sections of the zodiac by their ecliptic longitude. The sign of Aries would then be 0°-30°, Taurus 30°-60°, Gemini 60°-90° and so on. Or we could call the twelve sections by their ordinal number - section one, section two, section three, etc.