Horoscope

(Revision as of 07:43, 9 Mar 2005)

A horoscope is a simplified but technically precise drawing of the sky at a particular moment and place on the Earth's surface. A horoscope generally includes the twelve zodiacal signs, the twelve houses, and the positions of the planets and other mathematically derived points of interest within them.

There are several popular ways of drawing the horoscope. The most common method in the West currently is to represent the ecliptic as a circle, with the eastern horizon or ascendant to the left, the midheaven at the top, the western horizon or descendant on the right, and the nadir or IC at the bottom. The positions of house cusps, planets, and mathematically derived points of interest are then drawn in using their symbols and their degrees of ecliptic longitude.

In medieval Europe, and currently in parts of India, a square representation of the horoscope was used. In this figure,