Chart Calculations

Hello everyone!

I am a total newbie in the magnificent art of astrology. I am learning step by step on my own, and due to my inexperience it is hard for me to find good and complete (if possible) sources on how one calculates fully a chart for various reasons (natal, horary, progressions, aspects etc.). I do not enjoy the computer applications (I know they make life easier), but I want to learn to calculate by hand, so I can comprehend for the very beginning certain things.

I am browsing books and resources lately on the subject of "astrological mathematics". I am looking for something that not only shows "how to", but also explains the reason behind the mathematical process.

I would be very grateful for any recommendations.

mirrormask said:

Hello everyone!

I am a total newbie in the magnificent art of astrology.
I am learning step by step on my own, and due to my inexperience it is hard for me to find good and complete
(if possible)
sources on how one calculates fully a chart for various reasons
(natal, horary, progressions, aspects etc.).
I do not enjoy the computer applications
(I know they make life easier),
but I want to learn to calculate by hand,
so I can comprehend for the very beginning certain things.

I am browsing books and resources lately on the subject of "astrological mathematics".
I am looking for something that not only shows "how to",
but also explains the reason behind the mathematical process.

I would be very grateful for any recommendations.

Click to expand...

CALCULATING A NATAL CHART BY HAND EXAMPLE
FROM KEN WARD'S ASTROLOGY PAGES http://www.trans4mind.com/personal_d...ns/calcGMT.htm

Astrology: Calculating the Chart - UT or GMT.

QUOTE

'….While few people are actually going to work out astrological charts by hand
using paper, pencil,
it is important to know how to do it
because unless an astrologer spends a great deal of time doing charts by hand,
they will never fully understand astrology.
By doing charts by hand,
one begins to understand more about the movement of the planets
and how they combine to affect the lives of people on Earth.
Astrology is a sacred science
and by doing the mundane routine things,
our minds enter a meditative state
wherein we realise things we might not have been able to know or understand otherwise....'

The tools you require to make a horoscope
in addition to writing and drawing tools
are
an atlas
a table of houses
and
an ephemeris

An ephemeris is a book or booklet containing information about the positions of planets, etc.
The information you require is the date and time and place of birth.
The place of birth is expressed in longitude and latitude.
Universal Time, or Greenwich Mean Time, is required to calculate the positions of the planets.


FREE ONLINE 9000 YEAR EPHEMERIS does not contain as much info as
for example RAPHAELS YEARLY EPHEMERIS available on amazon.com
or
AMERICAN EPHEMERIS FOR VARIOUS CENTURIES

FREE 9000 year EPHEMERIS ia at http://www.astro.com/swisseph/swepha_e.htm

NB

Hand and/or computer calculating
does not always yield exactly to the minute and second
the same results as from astrological software

In fact,
not all astrological software yields exactly to the minute-second the same results
as another astrological software,
thus a small amount of error is accepted by exams.....'

I am also a total newbie in Astrology, and interested in learning manual chart calculation.

When I read the web pages for how to manually calculate charts, I see ways to converting the local times into UT or GMT.

But because the position of each planets in Ephemeris are either for Noon or Midnight of look-up date, I was wondering if you have to convert the positions of each planets which are in Ephemeris for Noon or Midnight, into each planets positions of the time of the native's birth or the present time now for likes of Horary charts.

I cannot find any information on this part. Maybe I missed it, or there is another way to do it I am not sure. What do you think?

Thank you for your info and link to your blog. Very nice.

But as a newbie, I feel that I must learn the most traditional and basic way to calculate the charts.

I was looking at various web sites explaining on the manual calculation methods for the charts, but they were all very complicated to me.

Luckily I have a very old book called "Astrology for Aquarian Age" by A. Mark. In that book, there is a chapter for Rising Ascendant Table for the whole year. So I just look up the page for today's date in there and time right now, and it tells what the rising ascendant for that moment.

I checked it with the charts out of ASTRO website, and they are spot on correct.

Next step for me is to write down all the signs into the chart after the rising ascendant.

But I do not know how to adjust the planet positions for the time from the Noon time position in Ephemeris. So I must now just do one reading at Noon (I am in GMT area, so no time conversion needed.), and just use the position from the Ephemeris. I am using it like that right now.

I think the signs move by one house every 2 hours, and only fast moving planets move like Moon, Sun and Mercury?? would need to be adjusted for the time difference from Noon position of Ephemeris to time of chart making? - not quite sure on this point, please correct me if I am wrong.

Ephemeris has column for Sideral Times, and I am sure this info is to be used for adjusting the moved planets from Noon or Midnight, but how? I am not sure at that point. This is something I need to find out and learn.

As Atrology is the oldest craft of human history, it is more fun to be able to do it manually even if it takes more time and effort than using the software system. Plus they say that the Astrology software systems are not all that accurate. They say that they are as accurate up to the programmer's astrological knowledge, skills and the software tools used to build the system, so the result from different software systems seem all different each other. So why throw out hundreds of hard earned dollars to something like that? So just try out free software system only when in hurry and trying out purposes, but use manual methods whenever time permits. That's just my opinion

Also as said before, it would be a good exercise for newbies to try, and understand the mechanics of horoscopes when learning the subject.

Thank you all for your comments! I really appreciate all inputs. Very valuable in my journey!

@Senecar, I feel you 100%. I have been reading and trying to decipher certain calculations from various sources.
So far, I have successfully aquired the first part of a basic chart calculation, which is "placing the signs with their appropriate degree on the cusps"(Tables of Houses), which demands the adjustment of the local birth time to "sidereal corrections".

The second part is "placing the planets in the Houses". I find this part quite intimidating and most sources cover it superficially. I have zillions of questions that no source so far has been able to clarify things for me. (Note: I am not saying that the sources are bad, just simply they did not help me because to me I need to understand what the calculations are doing and why they are needed. That's how my brain works and if I don't get it, it's impossible for me to go further. Questions like: Why logarithms are needed? Is there an alternative way? How do you use their sequences? etc. are already bugging me big time.

So, I finally ordered yesterday a book, solely on explaining with details the astrological calculations. I am willing to self-teach myself seriously in this art and dwell on predictive astrological techniques (Horary and Event astrology is a personal passion).

So for anyone reading this, I will be back recommending what worked for me in this mathematical maze.

Thank you moonris3 for taking the time to explain. And I found your blog very interesting, thank you for sharing!

I agree, placing the signs on the cusps are fairly easy. I am researching at the moment different variations of methodologies on how to erect a chart (not only natal, but also progressions, arabic parts, full list of aspects etc).
I am thinking at the end to post all relevant manuals that have worked for me and what their purpose is for any beginner who is struggling with complications.

Hi mirromask and moonris

Thank you for your very interesting posts. I look forward to reading your further posts in this topic, as I am also interested in understanding and learning the process.

But having somewhat apprehended by time required for learning, understanding and complicated calculations for newbie like me, for which might be impractical in real life usage, I have been trying to figure out simpler method for manually drawing the charts with reasonable accuracy.

For that I was looking at the charts generated by Astro.com every 2 hours, and noticed that all the planets move very little within 12 hours of time span to make any impact in the interpretations apart from the Moon, which moves about 0.6 degree per hour, and must be adjusted for the movement difference from the Noon time position in Ephemeris and lookup time.

So with that in mind, with just the Rising Ascendant Table and Ephemeris, I was able to draw random charts manually without complicated calculations fairly quickly - results have been compared between both manually drawn charts and the Astro versions for the same date, time and location. They proved to be nearly identical charts.

It is such a simple process, so I don't feel it needs elaborated, but if anyone wants to know more about it, I will try to explain further. Meanwhile I look forward to hearing more about your comments and your methods or ideas for the best manual chart drawing.

Birth Time: 4:20 am
Time zone: 5:00 add going east
GMT 9:20
Acl 1:29 the distance
Earth moved thru
space in 9 hrs 20
minutes(multi-
plied by 9.856sec
gives 1min29sec
of movement
Sidereal 19:02:43
Time for
Date of
birth. ---------

R.A.M.C.at 28:24:12
Greenwich

Time Zone
Correction 5:36:08 place of birth
subtract going
back west
--------
R.A.M.C. 22°48'04"

We now go to our table of houses and figure our longitude movement with the S.T.of birth.
There is the "constant of movement" required for planet calculations and latitude constant for the double interpolation of the cusp lines. The results of the dbl interpolation now
go thru a final calculation with the longitude constant.
Declinations are also figured by the planet constant.

This is general math and quite easy on a calculator with degrees. You must remember we are working with 24 hr time.

This book called "The Book" by Juliann C. Ryan, How to pass the AFA professional examination
He goes over everything and uses dbl cks to verify your math is right.

I have seen no other booklet that goes over these calculations(including how to do charts in other places worldwide) and explains it so well! And does it all in 57 pages.
This is THE defentitive book on the math,there is no other

There is another thread for manual chart calculation. The book by M. Hone is recommended for the calculation process. I think I have the book.

http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=94835

Just bought a book called

"FOUNDATION OF THE ASTROLOGICAL CHART - WITH COMPLETE MATHEMATICS" by IVY. M. GOLDSTEIN JACOBSON

and it seems excellent for the topic. After reading a couple of pages of the book, I realised that,

"If charts are for Horary or Natal chart - maybe could get away with not adjusting the movement of all the planets apart from Sun, Moon and Mercury.

But if erecting charts for Progression, Solar Return or Transits, then every planets' movement must be calculated accurately. "