A constellation in the zodiac. The sun was in the area of the sky where Aquarius is in late January to mid-February when the zodiac system of astrology was invented, but due to movement of the earth, the apparent positions of the stars have changed and the Sun is in Aquarius in late March to mid-April, the beginning of the astrological year. Hence the phrase "Age of Aquarius."

The most forgiving sign in the Zodiac. Aquarians, especially the women, will trust you when no one else does. This can lead to severe disillusionment if they choose badly, but trust is a quality that is in too short supply these days.

You would think this would be a water sign, wouldn't you; what with the water-bearer and all. But it is definitely an air sign, and can be either fanned into beauty or consumed by the fire signs. Be careful out there.

A computer marketed by Mattel during the fall of the video game craze in the early 1980's. It was a sad attempt at repackaging a low-end CPM machine, and eventually intended to dock with the Intellivision, although only freestanding units were sold.

The Aquarius shipped with a rubber-chicklet keyboard that was impossible to use, one of the slowest 8-bit processors of the day, and only 4K of RAM. After loading Microsoft Basic, just over 1K of memory was available. A small number of Intellivision games were ported to cartridge, but the unit suffered from the dreadful disc-type joysticks like its elder cousin.

The Aquarius was released a matter of moments before Mettel dumped their consumer electronics group, and most were sold at liquidators. Almost no peripherals were available, and the aftermarket never picked up on the machine, so it quickly died in 1984.

the water bearer

 .-^-._.-^-._.^
 .-^-._.-^-._.^

quality: fixed
element: air
ruled by: uranus

Aquarius
(January 21st to February 18th)
The Water Carrier
Colours: Electric blue, shocking pink fluorescent hues! All the colours of the rainbow are the colours of Uranus, ruler of Aquarius.
Stones: Sapphire, opal and chalcedony.
Metal: Uranium
Trees: Strawberry Tree, cornus and eucalyptus.
Flowers: Orchids, Pelargonium and hibiscius.
Countries: Sweden, Russia and Ethiopia.
Cities: Bremen, Hamburg and Brighton.

Stars
(spectral type, magnitude, distance in lightyears)

Other

Aquarius looks kind of like a crusty schoolbus on legs. It's about 9 feet wide and 43 feet long, and yellow where the original color shows through the coating of barnacles and sea life.

Aquarius is the world's only active undersea laboratory and habitat. It's located 3 miles off the Florida coast, sitting in about 65 feet of water. The lab is connected to a giant 30 foot bouy on the surface that provides power, fresh air, and wireless internet and cable tv links to the mainland. Aquarius has living quarters (extremely cramped)for marine scientists, graduate students, and recently even astronauts in training, who use the station as training for future missions aboard cramped space ships. As a matter of fact, people who have experienced stays in both say that the space station is much roomier and offers more privacy than the underwater lab.

Aquarius is extremely valuable to scientists doing underwater work because the habitat is pressurized to 2.5 atmospheres, the same as the surrounding water. Divers who have acclimated to that atmospheric pressure can work in the 60-90 foot water for up to 9 hours, as opposed to less than 30 minutes if they are still used to surface pressure. This is called saturation diving and is invaluable to underwater researchers. At the end of their stay, however, divers must go through a 17 hour decompression aboard Aquarius before they are safe to return to the surface.

Aquarius is owned by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and operated by the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, NC. There are three webcams aboard Aquarius. They may be viewed at http://152.20.1.33/aquarius/thumb_cam.htm. The next mission aboard Aquarius starts in Mid-September 2003

A*qua"ri*us (#), n. [L. aquarius, adj., relating to water, and n., a water-carrier, fr. aqua. See Aqua.] Astron. (a)

The Water-bearer; the eleventh sign in the zodiac, which the sun enters about the 20th of January; -- so called from the rains which prevail at that season in Italy and the East.

A constellation south of Pegasus.

© Webster 1913.