Feeling dissatisfied with your horoscope lately? Like it doesn't quite fit? Like it's not the real you?

Maybe your sun sign has changed. At least that's the theory proposed by Minnesota astronomer Parke Kunkle that went viral on the Internet earlier this week.

Kunkle's assertion that the alignment of the Earth, the moon and the stars has shifted over the years is true and very old news.

But it seems he didn't intend for folks to take him seriously when he suggested that horoscopes should be updated, with the addition of a 13th sign, Ophiuchus.

Nevertheless, Kunkle had folks talking.

Ceron, Houston's hairdresser to the stars, said he and his clients really believed that their sun signs were about to change. When he went to work Friday morning, that's all anybody was talking about.

"I was so upset; oh my God, I was furious," Ceron said. "I'm a Leo, and that's what I'll be for the rest of my life; I don't care."

Under Kunkle's horoscope, Ceron would be a Cancer.

"I'm 46," he said. "That's too late to change."

Others dug their heels in as well.

One woman told Ceron, "I'm sorry; I'm totally Libra."

Later in the day Kunkle, an astronomy professor, acknowledged he proposed the reordering and reinterpreting of the zodiac as a class project, nothing more. In fact, he said he has so little interest in horoscopes, he doesn't know his own sign.

During a television interview, he quipped, "I wish I could be Ophiuchus."

Ancient Babylonians had 13 constellations but threw out Ophiuchus, the snake holder.

Hurt by the hoopla

As Kunkle was making the interview rounds, so was Houston's Nan Hall Linke. She's a psychotherapist and an astrologer, and she was dismissive of "the guy in Minnesota," reporters getting all excited about a non-story, and horoscopes.

"I call it the daily fortune cookie," Linke said. "If you need to do that," she said, "pick the one you like and make it true."

Linke does, however, endorse astrology, which she calls "the mother of astronomy." But that, she said, is not based on sun signs but the 10-planet system, the 12 signs and charts based on birth date, place and time.

"It's about exactitude," she said.

Summing up the recent tempest, Linke said, "True astrology is not about your sun sign, and your understanding of yourself should be based on your knowing yourself, not some Internet report from Minnesota."

Jacqueline Bigar, the King Features Syndicate astrologer whose daily horoscopes appear in the Houston Chronicle, said the hoopla has damaged and undermined the astrology community.

"To make all of astrology sound bogus is very sad," Bigar said.

"It makes me want to cry. Daily horoscopes are gateways to astrology, and when there is so much distortion, it makes it harder to come through that gate."

Kunkle may have a point

Lest Kunkle seem like a kook, however, Carolyn Sumner, vice president of astronomy for the Houston Museum of Natural Science, came to his defense.

In other words, Sumner said, Kunkle is right.

"Whether or not you believe astrology is a real science, here is what is interesting: If someone asks where was the sun in the sky when you were born, well, that answer will be different if you were born 2,000 years ago or today. "Perhaps this is a teachable moment, something interesting for all of us to think about."

In fact, Sumner has worked on an updated horoscope chart herself.