What a birth chart is
A birth chart, or natal chart, is a map of the sky at the minute you were born: where the Sun, the Moon and the planets stood, and which sign was rising in the east. Your zodiac sign is only one point of it - the Sun. The chart shows all the others.
Every point is a side of you: the Moon is your feelings and what you need to feel at home, Mercury - how you think and talk, Venus - how you love, Mars - your drive, Jupiter - your luck, Saturn - your boundaries. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto move slowly and mark whole generations, the lunar node and Lilith are sensitive points of the Moon's orbit.
Planets, signs and houses
Read a placement as a sentence: the planet is WHAT, the sign is HOW, the house is WHERE. Venus in Leo in the 5th house loves brightly and openly, and her stage is romance and creativity.
There are twelve houses, the twelve areas of life: the 1st is you and your appearance, the 2nd - money, the 7th - partnership, the 10th - career and name, the 12th - solitude. The sign on a house cusp tells how you handle that area, the planets inside tell how busy it is. An empty house is not bad - that part of life simply runs quietly.
The Ascendant and why the birth time matters
The Ascendant, or rising sign, is the sign that was coming up over the eastern horizon when you were born. It is your first impression - how people see you in the first minute - and the cusp of the 1st house. Opposite it lies the Descendant, at the top of the chart - the Midheaven (MC), your career and name.
The sky turns one degree every four minutes, so the Ascendant, the MC and all twelve houses depend on the exact time and place of birth. If you don't know the time, tick «I don't remember the time»: the chart is built for noon, the signs of the planets stay right (the Moon changes sign every two and a half days, so hers can be off on such a day), but there is no Ascendant and no houses.
How to calculate your birth chart
Enter the date, time and city of birth - the rest is the same calculation as in the Astroscope app: the tropical zodiac, the apparent positions of the planets for your moment of birth, converted from local time with the time zone and daylight saving rules of that very year, houses by Placidus, the mean lunar node and the mean Lilith. Checked against Swiss Ephemeris on 1,500 charts from 1920 to 2030: the planets within a third of an arc-minute, the Ascendant and the houses to about a hundredth of one.
Your date and time of birth do not go to our server - the chart is calculated right in your browser. Only the name of the city goes to the place search, and the page remembers your data on this device so you don't type it twice.
Can I make a birth chart without the time of birth?
Yes. Tick «I don't remember the time» and the chart is built for noon. The signs of all planets will be right (on the day the Moon changes sign hers may be off), but without the time there is no Ascendant, no MC and no houses.
How is a birth chart different from my zodiac sign?
Your zodiac sign is only the Sun. A birth chart has fourteen points and twelve houses, and two people with the same sign almost never share the same chart - that is why a horoscope by sign feels right only half the time.
Is it really free?
Yes: the chart wheel, every placement with its degree, the Ascendant, the MC and the houses are free and need no sign-up. The detailed reading of every planet and house, your transits and the AI astrologer are in the Astroscope app.
What does R next to a planet mean?
The planet is retrograde: seen from Earth it seems to move backwards across the sky. In a birth chart it means its theme is lived more inwardly - a retrograde Mercury likes to think first and speak later.
