Chart basics
Read your first chart
Read each planet as a function, its sign as the style and its house as the area of life. Start with the Sun, Moon and Ascendant, then use aspects to connect them.
Create your birth chartStart with the basics
Learn to read your chart.
Start with your Sun, Moon and rising sign. Then follow the placements and connections that you want to understand.
Start with my big threeWith your chart beside you
Put the chart together
Read a placement, connect it to another planet, then return to the full chart. The examples use Western astrological symbolism.
Open the full chart calculatorCheck what is known
Confirm the date, local time and selected place. If the time is unknown, use the available planetary signs and leave the rising sign and houses out.
When the result gives two signs
Read the available time ranges before choosing a sign. A sign that changes during the period is conditional; a familiar description cannot resolve the missing birth time.
Check the Moon across your birth-time rangeRead one placement at a time
Start with what the planet means, then add its sign and house. Mercury, for example, concerns thinking and communication. Its sign describes how someone communicates; its house shows the area of life involved.
Worked example
Mercury in Virgo, in the 3rd house
- MercuryWhat it describes
- Learning, reasoning and exchanging information.
- VirgoThe style
- Checking details, sorting information and improving a method.
- 3rd houseThe setting
- Everyday messages, early learning and contact with siblings or neighbours.
Read together, this placement suggests a theme of making everyday information precise and useful. Editing instructions or explaining a process step by step are examples of that symbolism.
The same attention to detail can become repeated checking or correcting someone before hearing their point.
This is an illustrative placement, not your calculated result. The example assumes Mercury has been calculated between the 3rd and 4th Placidus cusps. Its Virgo sign alone does not establish the house.
Changing one part changes the reading. Mercury in Virgo in the 10th house applies that detail-focused style to public work and responsibility. The sign stays the same; the house topic changes.
Look at the connections
Aspects are angles between chart positions. Astrologers use them to connect the meanings of two planets. A square suggests that the two planetary themes can be difficult to combine. A trine suggests that they support each other more easily.
Mercury square Mars combines communication with assertion. For example, a person might defend an idea quickly but struggle to let someone else finish speaking. The signs add their approach to communication; the houses identify the areas of life involved.
A 2° orb, step by step
Mercury at 10° Virgo and Mars at 12° Gemini are 88° apart. An exact square is 90°, so the difference is 2°. That difference is the orb.
A smaller orb means a closer angle. It doesn't measure the severity of a conflict or establish a person's behaviour.
Applying and separating aspects
An applying aspect moves toward its exact angle; a separating aspect moves away. The calculation needs both planets' motion. The orb alone cannot tell you which one it is.
Choose the next question
Your natal chart describes the birth moment. Other chart types compare different people or times, so choose one for the question you want to explore.
- The sky today
- Which signs and aspects are present at the stated time? These positions apply to everyone.
- Personal transits
- Which current planets contact positions in your birth chart, and when do those contacts occur?
- Two-chart tools
- Synastry compares one person's planets with another's. A composite creates a separate chart from their positional midpoints.
Read a full guide
Birth time
Work with an unknown birth time
Without a birth time you can still read your planets' signs and the aspects that hold across the whole day. The Moon can change sign, so Astriel shows both options. The Ascendant and houses stay unavailable.
Check your Moon signThe changing sky
Understand the sky on a date
Check the timestamp first, then read each planet's sign, degree and direct or retrograde label. Dated pages show noon UTC, and a personal transit also needs your birth chart.
See the current skyChart basics
Read the outer planets in context
Read Uranus, Neptune and Pluto by their degree, their aspects to the rest of your chart and, with a birth time, their house. People born years apart share their signs, so the sign alone says little about you.
Find your planetary placements