When you request a birth chart very often you are presented with a chart similar this. But what actually is this circle?
The earth and the other planets all mostly move in a flat plane in circular orbits around the sun. The circle is these orbits from the perspective of the earth. From the Earth it seems like these planets all have the belt of the zodiac behind them as they move around their orbits.
On the birth chart what appears on the left-most is the sign which is just coming up over the eastern horizon (or at least appearing to do so, as the earth spins on its axis). This is called the ascendant because this sign was ascending the sky at the time the subject was born.
The right-most part of the circle is what was setting in the West at the time of birth.
The top of the chart is what part of the zodiac was directly above the subject. If you live in the Northern hemisphere, like me, this sign actually appears just above the Southern sky. Similarly, if you are in the Southern Hemisphere you will see this sign over the Northern sky. Only if you actually live on the equator will this sign go straight overhead.
Please excuse the bad graphics and the planets which are not drawn to scale but this is a rough drawing of how the top half of the birth chart could be seen across the sky at the time the subject was born. The subject would be being born in that meeting place of the red lines. I feel that sometimes a picture tells a thousand words. It should be noted however that the birth chart forms an almost perfect semi-circle from East to West so you would normally not see it looking so small and would normally only see about half of it like this from the place where the person was born, but this picture alone which might be taken from the place of birth does not illustrate the point so well.
Each part of the Birth Chart is neatly divided up into zodiac signs and houses to illustrate where each planet appears in the skies over the baby and mathematical calculations to indicate where they would be under the earth if we could see them.
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