[Gwathagor]

Well...I think my CRAZY idea that astrology and astronomy are secretly the same thing is relevant to the question, because if I am right, then our question is wrong and we are setting up a false dichotomy.

If we are understanding astrology to mean newspaper horoscopes and petty fortune-telling, then I agree, it's nothing like astronomy. And yet, both things are produced from the same impulse, and have essentially the same purpose. This is more obvious if you are operating in a classical or medieval cosmology (which is the worldview within which Middle-earth exists). Until the rise of modernity, astrology was NOT horoscopes and crystal balls. It was based on the sensible notion that God's sovereign will and reason were reflected in his creation. By observing the movements of the heavenly bodies, a careful, scientifically-minded astrologer could attain a superior knowledge of the way the universe works, and what's going on in it. This is science. Astronomers, until the modern era, WERE astrologers: Ptolemy, the Magi, Pythagoras, Galileo (seriously); and our "astronomy vs. astrology" question is indicative of the same materialism and rationalism that likes to make Galileo a martyr for science who was locked up by the superstitious Church for refusing to compromise his professional, scientific integrity.

So, my point is that in Middle-earth (being a land firmly grounded in a medieval worldview) wise men who studied the stars could be safely called either astrologers or astronomers with equal accuracy.

I apologize, I think I may have just ranted.