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Previous to their implementation of the Western solar calendar scheme, the Chinese almost exclusively followed their own lunar calendar for determining the times of planting and harvesting and festival days. Although people in China today use the Western calendar for almost all business, governmental and practical matters of daily life, the old system still serves as the basis for working out numerous recurring holidays. This coexistence of two calendar schemes has long been acknowledged by the people of China.

However, this does not only apply to China, it also happens in most other Eastern countries, like Thailand, and most Arabic countries.

A lunar month is calculated by measuring the period of time required for the moon to finish its full cycle of 29 and a half days, a standard that makes the lunar year a full 11 days shorter than its solar counterpart. This disparity is made up every 19 years by the addition of seven lunar months.

The 12 lunar months are further divided into 24 solar divisions characterized by the four seasons and times of heat and cold, all of which bear a close relationship to the annual cycle of agricultural work.

The Chinese calendar - very much like the Hebrew calendar- is a combination of the solar and lunar calendars in that it strives to have its years coincide with the tropical year and its months coincide with the synodic months. It is not surprising that a few similarities exist between the Chinese and the Hebrew calendar.

For example, an average year has 12 months, a leap year has 13 months. An ordinary year has 353, 354, or 355 days, a leap year has 383, 384, or 385 days. When determining what a Chinese year will be like, one needs to make a number of astronomical calculations.

First of all, you have to determine the dates of the new moons. In these cases, a new Moon is the completely black Moon (that is to say, when the Moon is in conjunction with the Sun), not the first visible crescent, as is used by the Islamic and Hebrew calendars. The date of a new moon is then the first day of a new month.

The reason why the majority of countries which had their own calendars had to drop them in favour of the Western, Julian calendar that we use today, is business. First the British and then the Americans ran international business and they used the Julian calendar.Anyone who wanted to work with them had to follow suit. This is why national policy often differs from local custom in Third World countries.

The government desires to deal on the International markets, but the ordinary family in the country can not. So, the government adopted the Julian calendar but the people only pay lip service to it. I live in Thailand and people here do not even use the 24 hour day divided into two halves. Their day has four sections of six hours each and the first part starts at 6AM, not midnight. Therefore, they have four 4 o'clocks a day, for example but no 7 o'clocks. They are also 543 years ahead of us, although this is more common, for example in Muslim countries.

If you are fascinated by astronomy, then why not pop along to our website at: Astronomy Today

When people begin thinking about living room decorating ideas and making changes to their residence, whether it be one or two rooms or even the entire house, the first thing that usually comes to mind is 'what colour'. Usually, people choose colours that they are fond of or those which match pieces of their existing furniture. When looking for living room decorating ideas, one idea which is perhaps too often overlooked is decorating with the two basic colours (or shades, to be accurate) " black and white.

Black and white, when used in decorating demonstrates style and creates drama. Top interior designers say that every room in the house could benefit by using a slash of black. Black is a colour which anchors and grounds a room. Bringing sophistication, black is definitely a colour that demands attention. Living room decorating ideas for a home using black may include accessories such as light fixtures, trim or furniture. Black serves to add definition to the focal points in a room. Black is just one of the colours that stands out, but it is definitely one of the most eye-catching!

Using black and white shades in your stylish home decor, provides a clean, fresh, elegant touch to the atmosphere of the room. This combination can be added to any room in a home making it a sophisticated space. Black and white are often used in contemporary home decorating and often used to accent other colors in French Country design. It may be hard to visualize but there are many ideas for decorating a home using combinations of only these two basic shades.

The floor is a great area to start when you're having living room decorating ideas. Black and white vinyl tiles laid alternately make a beautiful checkered pattern and gives a clean and elegant appearance. Black marble used on the floor, accented by wide white baseboards is another fantastic idea for decorating a room. Laying white ceramic tiles with a black border or simply painting the floor black or white and using pattern stencils of the opposite colour for decoration is also really stunning. These all are great ideas for re-vamping a room.

Can you think of anything more perfect than white walls in the Mediterranean style? Painting the walls white or even an off-white, say smoke-white or apple-whitewould make an ideal backdrop for decorations such as paintings framed in black. Great living room decorating ideas! Elegant black window surrounds or black shutters against a clean, crisp white wall would definitely create an aura of sophistication. Maybe a glass-topped table with a black iron trim and black chairs? These are great ideas for decorating a residence using only black and white.

A bedroom decorated using black and white would be beautiful stylish home decor too. A black or white iron bed-frame, covered with a striped black and white duvet or eiderdown. For the pillow cases, you could use either all black or all white and could add throw cushions in the other colour.

A chunky leather black or white armchair in the corner would definitely accent the living room decorating ideas. Then you could have the white walls with a sophisticated piece of artwork, framed in black, hanging on it. That would surely add to the modern feel of your living room decorating ideas. Black furniture against the stark white walls would look really neat and tidy and you could jazz it all up with accessories like pewter or silver candlesticks, jugs or vases.

However, if you think that the living room decorating ideas need a bit more colour to complete the effect, maybe a throw or a cushion in a bright colour such as red or gold on the chair in the corner of the room would be enough to highlight the room. There are many ways to decorate a home, however, discovering the one that suits you and those who live with you is really very important. It's nice to do something extreme and unusual, but please remember that you must be able to live with what you have created for quite sometime.

If you are looking for modern ideas on Stylish Home Decor, then you really must visit our website for more free ideas on Interior Design Ideas and more.

Despite the fact that astronomy is the oldest science, it is still at the forefront of not only scientific thought, but also that of the public at large. Who hasn't looked up at the galaxy while walking home late at night and wondered about something larger? Having said that though, the ancient people of definitely the northern hemisphere, but probably both hemispheres, knew the movements of the stars and planets better than the majority of us do nowadays.

They knew even then, thousands of years ago, that most stars appear to appear in the Eastern skies at night and travel on circular paths. They also noticed that some 'stars' were 'wanderers' (we call them planets) and that sometimes they travelled 'against the flow'.

They also named groups of stars that we now call constellations or even galaxies and knew that those visible in the winter were different from those visible in the summer.and that others were visible all year round. The average common man of 5,000 - 10,000 years ago almost certainly knew more about the movement of the celestial bodies than the average common man of today does. (I mean men and women here, of course).

They discovered how to work out or at least find the extremities of the sunrise and went to extraordinary lengths to mark those points with huge stone structures, such as Stonehenge in the UK, probably to facilitate the location of certain positions of the sun or other planets or stars, which may have been important to their religious beliefs or crop cycles.

In 1609, Galileo invented the first artificial device for studying the stars and planets. It was the first astronomical telescope and through it he was able to observe things millions of miles away that no one had ever seen before. Because of the deductions he drew from his observations, he clashed with the Roman Catholic Church and was often in serious danger for his life, so radical were his discoveries.

But mankind was not intimidated, and since then we have gone on to build ever bigger and ever better telescopes with which we can even detect radio waves, microwaves, X-rays, infrared waves and gamma waves from outer space. Forty years ago, we even travelled to our Moon. and we have sent probes to eight of the nine planets in our Solar System, as well as to several comets and asteroids.

Where are we going next? That decision was always up to the government of the United States and the old Soviet Union, but now there are other players in the field. What will China or India want to explore with their possibly slightly different outlook on life? Or will it be just a question of financial benefit?

The world may be in a state of flux and power may be shifting from its traditional seats in the West, but it has not diminished interest in questions that scientists think can only be answered in space. These are exciting times for the science of astronomy, but then man has always found astronomy exciting.

Fascinated by astronomy? Then please pop along to our website at: http://astronomy.the-real-way.com

Your house is finally clean and tidy and you sit down and put your feet up for a minute with a nice cup of coffee by the side of you and you pick away at your cake. You feel tired but it's that good kind of tired when you know you've done a hard day's work and you have no regrets about it. A feeling of contentment settles on you and you look around you with satisfaction.

A magazine lies tantalizingly within reach and you give in and pull it to you, intending to enjoy your well-earned rest. The main cover story jumps right out at you, called Country Home Decor. Naturally you flip through eagerly to that very section, you had just seen an article on turning your house into a small country haven in another magazine and you were interested.

Page upon page of the magazine is filled with what can only be described as the most perfect country home decor you can imagine. You gaze longingly at the various styles and furnishings you see gracing the magazine's pages. A quick look up from your magazine assures you that your own modest home hasn't changed magically into one of those lovely country homes you were just looking at.

A sad sigh passes your lips at the disappointment and so you go back to reading your magazine article. You had never realized that you were the sort of person who could stand the country home decor style but now upon consideration you think you just might be able to.

Now without your even realising it, you start marking the pages that fascinate you the most, doing small mental calculations on how best to create the same effect but on the more modest budget that you have to spend. After all, it just wouldn't do to fork out for that lovely Welsh dresser and have to go without your freshly ground whole bean coffee, would it?

But, you could definitely go for that beautiful table runner without too much of a problem. And if you gave all those modern chrome coffee mugs and dinner sets to charity you wouldn't really be splashing out, would you, since you would have already done your best for charity and given them all these things?

And what about exchanging those jazzy blinds for something that's a bit more in the country home decor style. And while you're going about it, perhaps you could even exchange that ugly lampshade you received as a Christmas gift for something a little more country.

The only thing that is left for you to do now is to lie back and enjoy the fruits of your labours and gaze with open pride upon your beautifully redecorated home. Furnished, naturally enough, in the best country home decor style that you could cull from every source that you found, like that first magazine which spurred it all off way back then.

If you are searching for modern ideas on stylish home decor, then you ought to visit our website for more free ideas on country home decor and more.

So, one day, fabric shower curtains went the way of the dodo and glass shower doors became fashionable. But, like most fads, common sense resurfaced and the fashions that once were, have come back as they do. You'll now find that fabric shower curtains are fashionable once again and are easily available from most stylish home decor stores.

However, don't rush to get rid of your old glass doors just yet. The cleanliness and smart look of the glass doors seem to be firmly established with some people. Adherents of glass doors will swear by them and will even sometimes be ready to lay down their reputations for them.

You'll find, when discussing fabric shower curtains, that their owners are complacent and will smile when questioned about their preferences. Naturally, they'll defend their fabric shower curtains but they also admit to realizing the advantages of glass shower doors as well. No dripping from the bottom of the curtain, no constantly damp curtain folds that need to be separated out each morning in order to discourage mould.

The biggest convenience of all, is the easy cleaning afforded by glass shower doors. However, as the proponents of fabric shower curtains will also say to you, glass doors have their disadvantages as well, the biggest of which being that if you allow the cleaning of the doors to go for even one week, dark stains will begin to form along the sides where they're attached to the wall and some of these seem to have great determination.

And if you don't perform a good regular cleaning of the glass shower doors, your otherwise nice clean bathroom will begin to look rather grubby. The reason though why fabric shower curtains are an all out favourite of many people in the know, is for just one reason and one reason only. This is also what leads these people to have a smug smile on their faces even after they've just spent the last half hour cleaning their bathroom. Fabric shower curtains are disposable and therefore can be changed easily.

Yes, that's the one whopping big reason why fabric shower curtains continue to be a firm favourite with a lot of people. Have you ever tried changing your glass doors on a regular basis? It just won't happen and its doubtful if it will ever happen within a span of five years, unless that is you take a very large sledgehammer to it by accident.

So, now you understand the reason behind that mysterious grin and why fabric shower curtains never really went out of fashion. Convenience, more convenience and still more convenience. So if you're thinking of swapping from your glass shower doors to the more convenient fabric shower curtains don't be put off by the initial job that awaits you.

Once you remove those doors, your life is bound to become easier, and if it's not, just change one set of fabric shower curtains for others. If nothing else it'll make you feel a bit better!

If you are looking for more info on stylish fabric shower curtains , then you really ought to go along to our website for more free ideas on Stylish Home Decor and more.

Yes! Yes, yes, and yes a thousand times more. That was the reply you gave a week ago when your boyfriend took you out to dinner and proposed. There was no hesitation in your mind then and there isn't any now either really. The only thing that you're worried about though is the actual details of the wedding.

Your boyfriend, now your fiance of course, is very laid back and casual about it and said that anything you want is OK with him. He was sure that you would do a great job, just tell him if you wanted anything.

That's all good and fine, and normally you would have relished the chance, in fact you did jump at the chance. But now you're stuck on what to do for your wedding decorating ideas and motifs are all blending as one into your brain and you still don't know where to have the reception.

Of course, you could have the reception in an up market hotel with the works, everything catered for and all the niggily little details taken care of, but that seemed so impersonal, and you really want your wedding to be one that you, and everyone else, will remember for the rest of your life. So what should you do now?

Well, first and foremost, just take a deep breath and relax. Working yourself up into a frenzy won't do you any good. Next gather your bridesmaids and all willing and able people whom you trust to your side and have a council of war.

This is where you will decide details and get fresh perspective and ideas into your planning, and where most of all, you can have some fun with your wedding decorating ideas. You'll be simply amazed at how many great ideas a group of people can get if they're working on something like wedding decorating ideas with wedding cards being the least of it.

So you start off with an idea, maybe to have the all the cards handmade so that they become extra special to you as time goes by. Someone else has the great idea of getting a bunch of those little disposable cameras so that interested people would be able to take photographs, and you'd end up with a great many more candid pictures than you otherwise would have.

Yet another person comes up with a great basis theme design. Your wedding decorating ideas are now flowing fast and furious as one person after another speaks up offering you all the help you need to get your wedding plans sorted out.

Your mother however, comes up with the best wedding decorating ideas of all and such like being the least of all her concerns! Maybe|Perhaps you'd like to get married and then have your reception at their house.

They could put up a large tent to cater for all the guests, and the house could be done up to suit the occasion. And you say, 'Yes', again because there's nothing you want more than to be married at home.

If you are looking for more wedding decorating ideas, then you really must visit our website for more free ideas on Stylish Home Decor and more.

It's been more than a year now since you moved to your new work place and took over your new office. First of all, you were busy decorating your new home and learning a new job, but now that you're settled in you start noticing again the same things that you noticed when you first arrived.

The walls are a boring, drab colour and looking decidedly depressing, the sun streaming in through the heavy duty blinds is barely enough to light a mouse hole and the furniture is just about as grotty and plain as it can get. You figure that an acceptable amount of time has passed for you to start an office decorating project.

Of course, before you start it's always a good idea to make certain that those in charge won't have a problem with your stylish redecorating plans. And remember that it is just an office and so you should treat your plans to redecorate as such.

Painting the walls a bright red colour possibly might not work. However, you could brighten things up a bit by repainting the walls a bright and airy colour that won't be an eyesore to anyone, least of all you. Then you could always take down those ancient blinds that have been hanging there since the early'80's and replace them with something more pleasing and modern.

On the other hand, if the whole of the office is decorated in the same style with the same blinds hanging on each window, your stylish changes might not be appreciated by your colleagues. So, think twice before making drastic changes that alter the whole style and atmosphere of the entire office.

There are, however, easier ways you can carry out your office decorating project without too much hassle on your part and which doesn't necessarily need to be thought over too much. You could brighten up any room by placing a pot or two of flowering plants here and there around your office.

However, if you're like me and you don't have green fingers or if you compel any plant in your vicinity to immediate suicide, then maybe you shouldn't bother with plants. You could however bring in some lively pictures and hang them up on your walls. Or perhaps you have children and they have painted some lovely pictures for you.

Kids' paintings work well and will show your co-workers another side of your character. But, don't get stressed out over anything though - you really don't need a simple decorating project to add to the rest of your worries - an office decorating project should be fun and stress-free.

Remember, your office decorating project need not involve your upsetting the whole office, or yourself. It should be something that you can live with on a daily basis.

After all, you work in your office for most of the day, so it ought to be a place where you can be just as relaxed as you are in your own home.

If you are searching for more ideas on Stylish Home Decor, then you must go along to our website for more free ideas on Interior Design Ideas and more.

If you're redecorating your home, naturally you'll want only the best. However, often you'll find that the best comes with an expensive price tag attached to it as well. Unfortunately, many of us can't afford to splash out on the finer things in life, especially if we're redecorating our homes.

That's where the many discount home decor stores will come to your rescue. In these stores, you'll find that you can sometimes witness a miracle and find that you can actually get those finer things at a fantastic discount.

Some of the best discount home decor is to be found in your local department stores. They're probably the last places you'd think to look for discounts but if you get the timing right, seasonal sales in other stores will drive the prices down to match discount store prices. Nothing gets better than that, especially if you don't really want to spend hours going around searching for discount stores or warehouses.

Which leads us, naturally enough, to the next discount home decor shops - discount warehouses, in which you are presented with a wide range of choice from which you can buy your discount home decor and fittings. These large warehouse stores are ideal if you're happy spending the time doing a bit of browsing.

Be careful though, because if you buy from these discount warehouses, you're quite likely to see your perfect picture hanging in your neighbour's house as well. You should also go prepared to keep a tight grasp on your wallet as some of the items will simply demand to be bought. In this case, you'll find that the new discount home decor items you went in to buy, have multiplied substantially in number before you come back out.

Another good method, and one which I constantly use, is the Internet discount stores. Just type in the words "Discount Home Decor" into any Internet search engine and it will produce such a large number of stores that you may even become inundated.

The best way to deal with this is simply to search through a small number of the returned results and find a store that you like. As you go along, you can always cull many of them and find ones that best suit your requirements.

The Internet option is also good if you want to go through your local department store's Internet listings as well. Many times you'll find a variety of items at discount store prices that you wouldn't get at the store itself.

Delivery charges for home decor items bought over the Internet is usually very low or even free if you spend over a certain sum.

Any or all of these methods is a great way to begin your redecorating project and you'll find that, with only a little effort and thought on your part, you can find discount home decor items that will not only suit your budget but which will also suit your home, and ultimately, that's all that really matters, isn't it?

If you are looking for more info on stylish interior design jobs , then you really must visit our website for more free ideas on Stylish Home Decor and more.

Everyone likes diamonds and nobody looks bad in diamonds, do they? It is not actually within the scope of this piece to recommend whether diamonds are a good investment or not, but their perceived value is enormous. Instead, I would like to look at where the optimum place to buy a diamond is, since it is more importantant that you buy your diamond from a respectable merchant with a warranty than that you believe you got a decent trade on eBay by means of buying somone's granny's engagement ring, which may not be genuine.

Consequently, before you commence browsing for diamonds, consider dealing with a bonded jeweller. Bonded jewellers sell bonded diamonds and there are not many bonded jewellers in the world. In fact, of the jewellers in the world, only about 5% of them are bonded.

Buying a bonded diamond will cost more than buying a non-bonded diamond, but when you look at what you get with the bonded option, you will see that it is well worth the additional outlay.

First, bonded diamonds have a buy-back policy for the life of the diamond. No matter how long you keep the diamond, you can take it back to the bonded jeweller and sell it back to him or her, for a 100% refund.

If a jeweller does not offer a 100% buy-back assurance, for the life of the diamond, then you must take a closer look at the diamond to see what is wrong with it. Just joking, thay will always offer you a 100% buy-back guarantee or tell you why not.

Bonded diamonds also have a breakage policy. If the stone breaks or chips, the bonded jeweller will replace it with a new one - one time. No jeweller would ever offer such a policy on any stone that was not 100% natural, so just the offer of such a policy should give you peace of mind concerning the quality of the diamond. Bonded diamonds are natural and untreated.

Bonded diamonds improve in value, with a fixed appreciation rate that is intended to keep up with inflation. This means that a diamond that is valued at a particular amount of money today will be worth more in the future, as the price of diamonds continues to rise. This normally does not relate to buy-backs, although. It typically applies to trade-ins.

Alternatively, by buying a bonded diamond, you are sheltered against the prospect of a market collapse. If a market collapse does happen, the price of diamonds will fall. However, the bonded jeweller guarantees to reimburse you the difference between what the diamond is now worth and what you paid for it before the market fall.

It could be tricky to find a bonded jeweller in your vicinity, but if you can, this is who you need to do business with, as opposed to dealing with a non-bonded jeweller. Specifically inform the jeweller that you are only interested in bonded diamonds. You can discover a bonded jeweller in your area by using various online resources like Google or Yahoo, or by calling the local jewellery stores.

If you are interested in buying diamonds, go over to our web site right now to learn articles and tips on buying diamonds http://buying-diamonds.the-real-way.com

How much information on astronomy should there be for all the objects and phenomenon in the entire universe? Consider that there are somewhere around 1 x 10 ^22 stars in the universe, that's a one followed by 22 zeros. Then consider that many of those stars have planets revolving around them. Then consider all the moons that orbit those planets, then the comets and asteroids, the galaxies these stars form, the nebulae and black holes and everything else out there. The amount of information and data is staggering. This article, which presents astronomy facts, certainly won't contain every fact. But these are quite interesting facts nevertheless.

We will start by taking a look at a small section of astronomy: "the brightest stars seen from the Earth". That is excepting the Sun which is roughly 250,000 times nearer than the next nearest star. In fact, it is so bright that when the sky is viewed from the Earth, it blinds out all the other stars in the sky during a phenomenon called daytime.

Remember that according to the scale for the magnitudes given, lower numbers are brighter. Our Sun would be about -26.73, while the full moon is -12.6. So, with that in mind, here are the top 5:

#5 is Vega, meaning " falling eagle" in Arabic. is in Lyra. It's more or less 25 light years away and has a magnitude of 0.04.

When considering these astronomical facts, please remember that 'brightest from Earth' doesn't mean largest or brightest. The Sun is not the largest or brightest star in the universe or even the galaxy, yet it appears so bright because it is so near compared to other stars.

#4 Rigel Kentaurus is a very bright, bluish-white supergiant star in the constellation of Orion. It is a binary star, with an average apparent magnitude of 0.12. It's scientific name is Beta Orionis. 'Rigel Kentaurus' is Arabic for the 'foot of the centaur'. It's about four light years from Earth.

#3 is Arcturus. The translates as 'guardian of the bear' from the Greek. This star is about 37 light years away from us. It is situated in the constellation of Bootes, close to The Great Bear. It has a magnitude of 0.00

#2 Canopus. Of these top five, Canopus, the Greek name for the pilot of the vessel Argo made famous in the stories about Jason and the Argonauts, is the brightest. But it's 313 light years from Earth, so it's just second on this list as seen from Earth. It has a magnitude of -.62 as seen from this planet.

#1 is Sirius, which means 'scorching' in Greek. It's also called the 'Dog Star' because it is the brightest star in the constellation of Canis Major, which means 'The Big Dog' in Latin. It is only 9 light years from Earth, which makes it the second closest of these top five. From Earth it has a magnitude of -1.44, which makes it quite easily the brightest star as seen in the night sky.

This information doesn't even scratch the surface on the subject of astronomy facts but it's something to consider next time you look into the night sky.

Are you interested in Astronomy for Beginners? If you are then, please visait our website at http://astronomy.the-real-way.com