Technical - no birth time.

[Light]

Hi All

I wonder if anyone can help me? How do you interpret a chart with no birth time? Do we just use planets and signs? What baout the moon - what if its on a changing day?

What's the technical way, and what methods do others use?

btw - I'm not going to even attempt the r word - I don't know enough about astrology nor the person concerned to attempt that!

thanks for your time

light

[lillyjgc]

Hi there. well one way to interpret a natal chart when the birth time is not known is to set a chart for sunrise on the day of birth at the place of birth. The sign rising on the ascendant at sunrise gives, if you like, the "flavour of the day. This can be taken as the beginning of the person's life..When interpreting a natal with no birth time, I tend to look at the aspects much more between the outer planets- which can be fairly accurately known. Whilst the inner planets can still be used- eg it may be known the moon is definitely in say pisces...the degree won't be known and so aspects to the moon can't really be taken into account- the signs therefore become more relevant. Personally I find that a birth chart without the birth time has very limited use- also it's a real mind twist looking at a chart and keeping firmly in mind that the house cusps are wrong! Some people set a chart for 12:00pm- a midday chart.Personally I can't see why this is more valid than a sunrise chart, but even with a sunrise chart it must be remembered that aspects to the moon and fortuna, the sunrise house cusps, could be way out..When I am looking at someone's chart with no birth time basically I have to say things like."you have a sextile today between mercury and mars but as I don't know which houses these are in I can't say with any accuracy which part of your life will be affected". I too find rectification very difficult and I find it hard to really trust a rectified chart. i believe that harmonic charts may be useful for this but i have not mastered them yet (John addey).Someone recently posted a useful site for a rectification process but I didn't understand how the table worked so if anyone out there is wised up on this subject I am eager to learn. lillyjgc

[AquarianEssence]

I use sunrise with time unknown. This is a very readable chart from the viewpoint of Sun as personality. Even the health info is quite usable although lacking in some of the details the actual birth time would have. It's interesting, my dad, who's birth certificate didn't have time, has his sunrise Moon at the same degree as my first husband. The chart was quite informative. I've looked at a few noon charts. These would have their focus on the persons status and career as it relates to the Sun so it is quite valid too.

Rectification is quite time consuming and requires several significant events with the time known. One can assume a planet will be aspecting the angels. Then you have to determine which angle and play around with the chart until you find one that works with all the events. It's not likely that any aspect will be exact an angle though. For example, When my first child was born his ascendant was at the same degree as the ruler Venus, in my chart. His Moon is less that 1 degree conjunct my descendant but in the degree before and was even closer to square his dad's Moon.

Once you have a close time you can refine it by finding the day corresponding to the conception (full term is 9 months prior) when the Moon is at the natal ascendant degree and then find the time that day the ascendant was at the degree of the Moon at birth. THIS IS FOR A DAY BIRTH. You may determine that on the day of conception to have the match made you need to move the natal chart a few minutes or seconds. There are exceptions. FOR A NIGHT BIRTH, MATCH THE CONCEPTION MOON TO THE DESCENDANT.

There are exceptions. With mine I found the day had the Moon square to my ascendant/descendant and was within a couple seconds of by recorded birth time. This may be because I have a Void Scorpio Moon. But the normal rules worked for all the rest I tried. I also tested it on my children I knew the conception time with.

[Light]

Thanks peeps, You've certainly given me food for thought here. Sunrise seem to make sense - picking an arbituary time doesn't seem authentic. Flavour for the day seems a bit like getting a newspaper on the day you were born - makes sense.

The trouble is, I know the day, I know the place but there's noone to ask the time. I don't mind the number crunching, is there anything else I can do with the limited information available? Something not time dependent?

thanks

Light.

[AquarianEssence]

Not that I know of but there are a lot of major events in anyone's life, major move, death of someone close, marriage, birth, 1st sexual encounter......Even with events you don't know the time of, a certain degree may keep coming up with different planets. I've noticed with several events the ascendant will be the same as my ascendant if its really about me or I initiated it.

[astro.teacher]

If you have a general idea of the time (or you have enough time on your hands to try every hour) you can use the three methods I have on my website used by the Ancients and Traditional authors to rectify a birth time. They are very accurate.

http://antiquus.50webs.com/Birth.html

All should be used together as they each confirm each other. Hope that helps!

[holly]

I find a chart with an unknown birthtime is good enough for seeing what basic psychological make-up the person has. I figure that knowing their planetary positions is better than knowing nothing at all!

I do understand why people use midday charts because if you cast a midday chart, but ignore house positions/ascendant, you can be a maximum of 12 hours out either way. I tend to just figure out planets in signs, and if a sign changes during the day of birth, I just keep that in mind.

I have found, in chart interpretation, themes are often repeated. If you find a certain trait in one part of the chart, more than likely it can be found somewhere else. So by this theory, you can have a pretty good description of a person based only on planets in signs. You won't be 100% accurate, obviously, but you won't be wrong either. I see it as a sight-impaired person without their glasses on: you can make out forms, colours and shapes, but you can't see the detail.

This is done for my own personal use, I would NEVER offer an interpretation to somebody without a correct birthtime. In my eyes this is very irresponsible, and the inaccuracy can give astrology a bad name, possibly turning the person off astrology forever.

[Draco]

I have a problem in using the sunrise chart in cases of unknown birth time.

While this is a more desirable method than the more arbitrary one of setting a chart for noon (even though at 'clock noon' the Sun is seldom conjoined with midheaven, for such charts the Sun should conjoin midheaven precisely), how do you know that you are setting the chart for the rising of the Sun in the 24 hour period in which the native was actually born?

What I mean is, you may calculate a persons birth from sunrise on the date that is given as the person's birth, however, we must consider that an astrological day goes from one sunrise to the next, but as we are going off calendar date, and not astrological time, then this means that if the person was born when the date changed at midnight, it may be more appropriate to set the sunrise chart for the day before, so that the chart then encompasses the sunrise-to-sunrise period in which the native was born.

This is the problem I have with sunrise charts, half the time they're inappropriately cast.

[Light]

Hi all

Sorry for the delay in responding..

Astro.teacher


If you have a general idea of the time (or you have enough time on your hands to try every hour)


You understand me too well :o Not that I have a lot of time, but more than willing to sacrifice/waste it by messing about with numbers. I'll give this a try.

Holly


I would NEVER offer an interpretation to somebody without a correct birthtime. In my eyes this is very irresponsible, and the inaccuracy can give astrology a bad name, possibly turning the person off astrology forever.


This is what bothers me. A collegue has asked for their chart, and doesn't know time of birth. There's no relatives to ask and they're not really interested enough to warrant a full scale investigation through the hospitals. I'll proabaly end up sending them to the nearest freebee web site, which helps neither them nor me.

Like Draco, I have a problem with sunrise charts (although I can see the resoning behind it), as I do with setting anyother arbitary time - it doesn't seem authentic. Maybe that's my inexperience?

Perhaps the best way to go with this is to say I can't do it. Which in itself is not a lie - I can't in that I don't know how. But there lies the dilemma - here I am, being given permission to do something and I don't do it! (seems to be the story of my life, that!) For some reason I feel my nodal axis at work here (cap sun/SN conj Aqu me/sat all in 3rd! - Moon/pluto/uranus/MC in Virgo!)

Perhaps the best solution is to use this information to practice in private and tell them I can't do it.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your help

light

[holly]

Holly

This is what bothers me. A collegue has asked for their chart, and doesn't know time of birth. There's no relatives to ask and they're not really interested enough to warrant a full scale investigation through the hospitals. I'll proabaly end up sending them to the nearest freebee web site, which helps neither them nor me.

Perhaps the best solution is to use this information to practice in private and tell them I can't do it.

light

I understand it is really frustrating. I was recently given the birth data of the daughter of my mum's work colleague, but the birth time was an estimate. Using that time, the Ascendant ended up at 29 degrees of Aries. I chose not to interpret that chart at all, because if the birth time is out by as little as 4 minutes, I have effectively interpreted the wrong chart. The native would not recognise herself in my interpretation at all, she would come to the conclusion that astrology is rubbish and tell all her friends just that. I don't need to do astrology another disservice by "making do" with a chart that is supposedly "close enough".


Perhaps the best way to go with this is to say I can't do it. Which in itself is not a lie - I can't in that I don't know how. But there lies the dilemma - here I am, being given permission to do something and I don't do it! (seems to be the story of my life, that!)

To the contrary, you are a better person for doing the responsible thing and not doing the chart, than you would be if you went ahead with it. Something strikes me as underhanded about doing a chart knowing the information is missing or incorrect. I'd rather not do it at all than do it wrong, and earn myself a bad reputation.


If this person seriously wants their chart done, they can call the hospital records department and pay a small fee (I paid $25) to access their birth record and get the correct time. That is much better than a random chart. Good luck with it all.