Nowadays it is not common knowledge that the stars move though the night sky each night as the Sun does every day. Even fewer people are aware that the stars progress through the night sky on a yearly basis. If you look at the same time each night you will see that the stars have moved a little further in the same direction that they and the Sun travel every day. The stars take one full year to return to the same position at the same time.
In the days before electric and gas lighting people had little to do through
the long winter nights. Moonlight made a difference but on clear nights, watching
and wondering at the motion of the stars must have been a favourite pass-time
of more than just poets. In ancient times the motion of the stars was common
knowledge. The ancient Greeks based their legends around the progression of
the stars in the night sky using them as guides for when to plant their crops,
just as the ancient Egyptians used them to predict the when the Nile would
flood.
It is the progression of the stars in the night sky and the wondering of the
planets that is responsible for the art of astrology.