Tag Archives: tutorial
I decided to make this tutorial because the art of manually calculating a natal chart is getting lost. It’s very important for beginning astrologers to master at least the calculation of the natal chart by hand. It gives important insight into the movement of signs and planets and will later help develop a better understanding of transitions and progressions. You will have missed something if you use online calculators like Astrodienst or astrology programs.
What you will need for this tutorial is the following:
- Time zone and daylight savings information (timeanddate.com).
- Ephemeris (see Astrodienst)
- House tables (Placidus)
- Logarithm tables in 24 hour format (as a free service from AFAD)
The only thing I won’t be able to help with is the house tables, since I didn’t find them online. It is recommended to buy an Ephemeris with Placidus house tables for all latitudes, since you will need to reference it often in predictive astrology.
The order in which a natal chart is calculated is as follows:
- Determining latitude and longitude of the place of birth.
- Determining GMT + Local Time.
- Determining Star Time with the Local Time and Longitude of birth.
- Looking up the house positions using the Star Time and Latitude.
- Determining Planetary positions with the GMT and log tables.
- Drawing up the chart.
Below the cut, all is explained. I will be taking my own birth information as an example. The details are: Heerlen (the Netherlands), 31st of August 1981, 17:50 hours.
Are you ready to begin?
