Ascendant Confusion

ScarlettPersephone · Jan 4, 2012

Hey guys,

I have an insatiable fascination with astrology, so I sort of got put into the astrology nerd category in my immediate circle :whistling:

. Needless to say when someone wants to know about their chart I am the go to person. However, I'm a bit confused when it comes to my own at the moment (especially when accurate info is needed for posts/threads)

. Every reputable site (and some not as reputable) that I have used to create natal chart for family and friends, has always correlated Asc. But, when it comes to my own it seems I come up 50/50 with having a :libra:

,

Asc. to a

,

Asc. I at one point used my astrology pack to write out my own chart and believe I got :leo:

Asc, but can't be certain because I lost the Ascendant chart in one of our family's moves :andy:

. If anyone can shed some light on the situation it would be greatly appreciated!

So here is the info that I'm assuming will probably be needed?
Day: twentieth Month: August Year: '93 Time: 5:02 am
Place: Caldas da rainha, Portugal (39w24 09N08 if it isn't available) and Daylight savings was in effect

miquar · Jan 5, 2012

Hi dr. farr. I don't understand why its necessary to correct the time. I thought that ephemerides used UT, and that clocks use either UT or a time derived from it according, broadly speaking, to longitude. Could you shed some light on this, please? Many thanks.

MSO · Jan 5, 2012

miquar said:
Hi dr. farr. I don't understand why its necessary to correct the time. I thought that ephemerides used UT, and that clocks use either UT or a time derived from it according, broadly speaking, to longitude. Could you shed some light on this, please? Many thanks.

It has to do with the exact ascendant point. Sometimes the time can be off by several minutes, and that can move your AC. Mine moved back almost two degrees using local time. Another member moved forward almost four.

It can change your rising; mine went from 2°10' to 0°34'!

miquar · Jan 5, 2012

Sorry I still don't understand why you need to tweak the time on the clock, when it translates to UT, which is what the ephemerides use. Then the exact angles are found by using the exact geographical coordinates aren't they? Thanks for your patience.

Inconjunct · Jan 5, 2012

I'm confused as well - local time is as it says, local and not the time of the heavens, which is calculated from GMT

ScarlettPersephone · Jan 5, 2012

dr. farr said:
Correcting the given clock birth time to Sun/Cosmic time (which on the day of birth was 3 minutes slower than clock time) we get the rectified Sun/Cosmic birth time as 4:59 AM, 20 August, 1993: erecting a standard (tropical) chart for this time (and place in Portugal)

I also don't understant why the time must be changed to Sun/Cosmic time. Don't the time zones and the daylight savings start/end periods suffice?

I'm confused as well - local time is as it says, local and not the time of the heavens, which is calculated from GMT.

I also thought the same Inconjunct.

Claire19 · Jan 6, 2012

I dont know why you just dont use Astrodienst to do your charts?? You can do them in the twinkling of an eye and for free. THe exact time of birth is needed for the right ascendant degree but many of us dont have that. Using text books and doing charts manually is the old way and often fraught with inaccuracies...

I have done your chart with the details you provided and you have Gemini rising with Mercury in Cancer....So you would perhaps be more rounded than the usual Gemini rising and with a paler complexion than usual??? Mercury is in the 2nd house of our personal income, values and material assets along with the SUn in Cancer and the Moon in Leo and although they are conjunct they are in different signs and a little weaker for that. A big focus in your life for sure... .

Claire19 · Jan 6, 2012

ScarlettPersephone said:
I also don't understant why the time must be changed to Sun/Cosmic time. Don't the time zones and the daylight savings start/end periods suffice?

I also thought the same Inconjunct.

The automatic calculations done by such as Astrodienst and other free chart services take care of daylight saving etc and all goes back to GMT time and then calculationed forward or back from that..

miquar · Jan 6, 2012

Claire19 said:
I dont know why you just dont use Astrodienst to do your charts?? You can do them in the twinkling of an eye and for free. THe exact time of birth is needed for the right ascendant degree but many of us dont have that. Using text books and doing charts manually is the old way and often fraught with inaccuracies...

Hi Claire19. I think you've missed the point of what this thread is discussing.

miquar · Jan 6, 2012

Hi dr. farr. Yes I was aware of the equation of time, which if I understand rightly is caused by the Earth's eliptical orbit. But are the ephemerides, whether as books or in software, are using UT, and the clock time is also derived from UT in units of whole (or in some cases half) hours, I don't understand why you would use the equation of time to translate the birth time into cosmic time?

I understand that you're not trying to convince anyone to use it - I'm just keen to understand this approach. Thanks for your patience.

Kannon · Jan 6, 2012

http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25131

miquar · Jan 6, 2012

Sorry - yet more questions.

Are you saying that when an ephemeris claims to use UT, it actually isn't? I once read that if you were using a sundial, you would have to correct the reading from the shadow using the equation of time, as well obviously as having the dial set up for your geographical coordinates. This I guess is because Sundials give you LAT. But surely when putting together an ephemeris of any kind, people would use the regular and consistent passage of time which is UT?

Did you calculate the time of Sunrise for your exact locality, or was it a general time given for a large geographical area like a country, in which case your locality might have had a different rising time? For example, if I look up the rising time I will probably get the one for London, but because my longitude is a few degrees West of that, Sunrise will be later for me. Also because I am further North than London, I will get a still later in the Northern hemisphere autumn/winter months and a not so much later one in the spring/summer.

You probably already thought of this...

miquar · Jan 6, 2012

Hi again. I just reread the first paragraph of your last post. Perhaps the issue is to do with True Local Time. My understanding is that LST is converted to UT, and then to sidereal time, and that one can then see which zodiacal degree is over which line of longitude, and therefore which degree is culminating at the longitude of the location for which the chart is cast. Then the Ascendant can be extrapolated geometrically using the lattitude. The Sun's position doesn't come into this at all, as far as I can see. I don't see why True Local Time would be needed in the computation, or why it would be desirable to use it.

miquar · Jan 6, 2012

our last posts crossed by the way, in case of confusion...

miquar · Jan 6, 2012

But neither the clocks on our walls, nor the astronomers who plot positions have anything to do with LAT, so I can't see where the difference creeps in? Why would we use LAT if it is a separate phenomenon which has no connection with civil or astronomical time-keeping? What I'm saying I think is that LST surely gives you your accurate sidereal time, and that's the important thing.

MSO · Jan 6, 2012

dr. farr said:
Astro.com gives excellent free chart erection services; only thing they don't do is to correct for Sun/Cosmic time (aka Local Apparent Time aka the "equation of time") but no other astro programs do this either (except for a manual setting to do so which is supposedly available with the Solar Fire program)

Few (very few, even of the top Modernist, contemporary Traditionalist or even Vedic astrological practitioners) rectify for Sun/Cosmic time; I am not trying to advocate this rectification to any one, its just that I myself prefer to use actual Sun Time (LAT; what I refer to as Sun/Cosmic time) in preference to man-made international time convention "clock" time (ie, Local Standard Time), as the "starting time" for computing a given chart, especially when the Sun Time difference is between 5 minutes and 16 minutes earlier or later than the clock time (Local Standard Time)-the table available @ Daily Sun Data (google to find this) shows this difference for every day of the year, for the few who might be interested.

Yeah I can see why, though. Unless your AC or MC are very close to sign boundaries and/or coming within orb of aspect, you're not really going to glean much information from it. Moderners don't bother with anything that requires precise to-the-minute calculations for predictions. And most of the ancient's writings on those predictive methods is lost or vague.

miquar · Jan 6, 2012

Hi dr.farr. I agree that LST and UT are manmade, but the issue is not how time is measured but rather where the planets are. And to know this we must use the same manmade time as the astronomers. But anyway I guess we all have to deal with all these vagueries and variables in our own way.

ScarlettPersephone · Jan 6, 2012

Claire19 said:
I dont know why you just dont use Astrodienst to do your charts?? You can do them in the twinkling of an eye and for free.

Hi Claire 19,

I have actually used Astrodienst to do my chart, and at first I got :cancer:

ascendant. But when I checked to make sure it had the right time zone along with the right adjustment for daylight savings it said that it's automatic setting changed it for 2h east daylight savings. I checked to make sure that was correct, only to find that my time zone is actually Western European Summer Time (UTC+1). So, I corrected it to that and got :leo:

ascendant. However I still want to understand why where ever I go to get my chart done, it goes with one ascendant or the other.

So you would perhaps be more rounded than the usual Gemini rising and with a paler complexion than usual???

I appreciate that you took the time to calculate my chart :joyful:

. I deffinitly never thought of myself as a :gemini:

ascendant, and never got that as one of the above calculated ascendants for my chart before... Except once when I mistakenly switched up the longitude and latitude coordinates :andy:

, but quickly corrected it and again got :leo:

Asc.

Claire19 · Jan 6, 2012

dr. farr said:
Astro.com gives excellent free chart erection services; only thing they don't do is to correct for Sun/Cosmic time (aka Local Apparent Time aka the "equation of time") but no other astro programs do this either (except for a manual setting to do so which is supposedly available with the Solar Fire program)

Few (very few, even of the top Modernist, contemporary Traditionalist or even Vedic astrological practitioners) rectify for Sun/Cosmic time; I am not trying to advocate this rectification to any one, its just that I myself prefer to use actual Sun Time (LAT; what I refer to as Sun/Cosmic time) in preference to man-made international time convention "clock" time (ie, Local Standard Time), as the "starting time" for computing a given chart, especially when the Sun Time difference is between 5 minutes and 16 minutes earlier or later than the clock time (Local Standard Time)-the table available @ Daily Sun Data (google to find this) shows this difference for every day of the year, for the few who might be interested.

What on Earth is Sun Cosmic time????HOw is it valid?? I know my ascendant time and the degree is apt.. I am sufficiently practised to know that.

ScarlettPersephone · Jan 6, 2012

Kannon said:
http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25131

Thanks for the link Kannon. I actually read that thread just a few days before I posted this one up! It was one of the reasons why I posted this thread in the first place. :lol:

I understand that the ascendant does affect your overall physical appearance, however don't the planets aspecting your asc influence it as well?

Also, being that I'm a :leo:

, and leo (no matter which Asc I have) being one of my three dominant signs/planets in my chart have an impact physically? Not to mention my Asc being sextiled by my :mars:

&

who are both in :libra:

(when my chart reads :leo:

Asc) with

positioned in my first house have an affect?

Or if you look at my chart from a :cancer:

Asc POV: My :cancer:

Asc

and

both in

,

Asc

,

Asc in aspect with :saturn:

, my Asc also :square:

, being in aspect once more with :mars:

and finally :conjunct:

?

Just out of curiosity oh and a healthy dose of naive/confusion.

If it helps those who are taking their much appreciated time to reply to this thread, I am posting my charts that were both drawn up by astro.com :smile:

one with the :leo:

Asc and the other with the :cancer:

Asc.

Ascendant Confusion

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