Clyde Tombaugh

Clyde Tombaugh b. February 4, 1906 Streator, La Salle County, Illinois

Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930. He was looking for a mysterious Planet X that others had suspected was hiding behind Neptune. Amazingly, his natal chart mirrors this same story when the transit of Pluto is added into the mix! His natal planets are aligned in a bowl shape pattern bordered by Uranus (in Capricorn) on one side and opposite Neptune (in Cancer) on the other. When Tombaugh discovered Pluto it had just passed over his own Neptune and was past by about 5 degrees. To intensify this picture, Saturn was passing over his natal Uranus while, on the other side, Jupiter would conjunct first Neptune and then Pluto within that year. (This, of course, was the Saturn-Pluto opposition of the first year of the Great Depression.) Someday, I'll add images so that the visual aspect of what I'm trying to say will make sense (to all my many readers).

Tombaugh passed away in 1997 and now Pluto has been demoted to "Dwarf Planet" at the conference of the General Assembly of the International Astromical Union in Prague this past August. There's a photo of the Seven people of the "Planet Definition Committee" in the November 2006 issue of Discover Magazine. I've drawn mustaches on all their faces. I was hoping that I could find their names and birthdates to figure out where Pluto was in their own charts. Actually they were only trying to redefine the definitions but I certainly think that they could have made sure that Pluto was well taken care of. Only 424 of the 2,412 astronomers who belong to the Assembly actually voted.

By the way, Clyde Tombaugh's noontime chart shows a conjunction of Pluto to the Moon in Gemini to the degree. Guess he was the right man for his job.