How is Western astrology done?

Get date, time and place of birth. Work out Sun, Moon and Ascendant. Read how the three converse.

Madame Iselda

Living tradition

Western astrology

From Babylon to Greece and Rome; the twelve signs you know.

The Sun, Moon and Ascendant at birth sketch a character: what you are, what you feel and what you show.

How it's done

01Get date, time and place of birth.
02Work out Sun, Moon and Ascendant.
03Read how the three converse.

With your own tools

Ask your family for the exact hour: the Ascendant changes every two hours and is what people get wrong most.

With Ocluna

Ocluna computes your sky with real ephemerides in a second; if you don't know the time, it still gives you Sun and Moon.

Calculate my chartLearn Birth chart by playing

What Madame Iselda tells you

The twelve signs were born in Babylon about 2,500 years ago; the Greeks gave them the names we still use.
Until the 17th century astronomers such as Kepler and Galileo cast horoscopes for a living; it was part of the job.
The weekday names in Romance languages follow the seven classical planets: Monday for the Moon, Tuesday for Mars, Wednesday for Mercury.
Johannes Kepler, the astronomer who discovered elliptical orbits, earned his living for years casting birth charts for nobles and emperors.
The Almagest and the Tetrabiblos were written by the same author: one describes the movement of celestial bodies and the other their interpretation. Claudius Ptolemy worked in Alexandria in the 2nd century.
Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac, which starts at the equinox, and Indian astrology uses the sidereal zodiac, anchored to the stars; today they are separated by about twenty-four degrees.
Each sign is divided into three decans of ten degrees, a system that Greek astrologers adopted from the priests of Egypt, where each decan had its own star.
Kepler published the treatise Tertius interveniens in 1610, where he defended the core of astrology while rejecting its excesses: he presented himself as a third party between two factions.

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This reading is symbolic self-knowledge and entertainment content based on folk traditions. It does not predict the future, is not medical, legal or financial advice, and does not replace qualified professionals.

What Madame Iselda tells you

The twelve signs were born in Babylon about 2,500 years ago; the Greeks gave them the names we still use.

Until the 17th century astronomers such as Kepler and Galileo cast horoscopes for a living; it was part of the job.

The weekday names in Romance languages follow the seven classical planets: Monday for the Moon, Tuesday for Mars, Wednesday for Mercury.

Johannes Kepler, the astronomer who discovered elliptical orbits, earned his living for years casting birth charts for nobles and emperors.

The Almagest and the Tetrabiblos were written by the same author: one describes the movement of celestial bodies and the other their interpretation. Claudius Ptolemy worked in Alexandria in the 2nd century.

Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac, which starts at the equinox, and Indian astrology uses the sidereal zodiac, anchored to the stars; today they are separated by about twenty-four degrees.

Each sign is divided into three decans of ten degrees, a system that Greek astrologers adopted from the priests of Egypt, where each decan had its own star.

Kepler published the treatise Tertius interveniens in 1610, where he defended the core of astrology while rejecting its excesses: he presented himself as a third party between two factions.