How to Find Your Birth Chart:
There are many free and paid online programs that you can utilise to see your birth chart, whether that’s online on your phone. So, in this blog, I am going to show you how to find your chart through different programs that are available.
Which Program Is Best for You?
When starting to learn astrology, it can seem intimidating because you have one TikTok creator using one program and another using a completely different program. So, how do you know which one is best for you? Well, lucky for you I have utilised some of the many popular programs and I am going to give a list of which programs I feel are best and some that are just worth it from my experience!
Websites:
Astro.com
If there is one website that I would suggest to anybody, this would be the best option for a few reasons. The first being it’s free. You heard me right, FREE. No need to pay any subscription it’s all free and it has pretty much everything you need. You can pull hundreds of types of charts ranging from Tropical to Draconic. There’s thousands of asteroids, fixed stars, and calculations you can input into the program (even non-common asteroids such as “Actor” or “Nessus” can be inputted in, and you can find codes to practically any asteroid or fixed star via Google). Another reason this is a great resource is because it shows a table of aspects. If you’re like me and SUCK at remembering what coloured line goes with which aspect, you’re in luck because the table will tell you everything you need to know! Another reason I prefer using this program over any other website is that it’s so easy to change the house system and the chart type itself. If you’re a beginner, you can change from the default house system to the whole sign house system. If you practice Sidereal or Draconic rather than Tropical zodiac system, you can change that as well! You’re also able to look at your planetary return charts, synastry charts, progressed charts, and transit charts. Finally, their newer feature includes an Ephemeris PDF that you are able to print out or save to your computer. An Ephemeris, for beginners, is just a book of planetary positions that lists all of the planetary transits for the year, and it utilised as a way for astrologers to plan out their year around transits. The only major downfall of this website is that you cannot see the aspects between your chart and a transiting chart or synastry. There is also not an explanation of anything, so that is a challenging point for beginners.
Astro.cafeastrology.com
While I am not the biggest fan of the way the natal wheel looks aesthetically, I do think this is an excellent website for beginners to utilise. The website does a great job breaking down your personal astrology chart with brief explanations of what each placement means. Much like Astro.com, it is free and does provide a table for your aspects, so you don’t have to memorize what each coloured line means. The site also provides a non-wheel chart of what house each planet is located in. There are also free blogs that provide amazing beginner level explanations along with synastry aspects. The downside of this website is that you are not able to input most asteroids, fixed placements, or chart calculations so that is where Astro.com has them beat. You are also not able to change the house systems or zodiac systems (at least that I am aware of). The site also allows you to purchase more in-depth readings for both your natal charts and synastry charts, neither of which I have ever purchased so I cannot attest to the accuracy of the chart explanations. Overall, though, this is a great starting point for beginners and a great free online resource.
Astro-Seek.com
Much like the above sites, this is 100% free. This is a similar set up to Astro.com, however, you are not able to do as much with this as you can with other websites in my opinion. There are asteroids that you can choose to be in your chart, but not as wide of a variety as Astro.com. There are side bars that do show the table with the aspects, planetary placements, and other necessities that you may need. A few things that makes this stand out over other websites is that it has a bunch of other small things that can be useful. The website has calendar breakdowns of what transits are upcoming, what dates and times full and new moons will be, and a breakdown of retrogradation period dates are for each planet. Another piece of this website that I think makes it stand out is it’s internal database of celebrities, so you don’t have to sit on google for hours finding certain celebrities birth charts. This site also has a few brief descriptions of each planet and their placements plus a short blurb about each aspect’s meaning in your personal chart. There is also a tab that shows aspect tables, the chart shape, the positions of each planet (beginners, I wouldn’t dive too deep into this), and the dominance of your chart (personally I don’t like this site’s calculation for dominance, and I actually prefer either calculating it by hand or utilising Astro.com’s Pullen Astrology to determine planetary and sign dominance).
Astro-Charts.com
This is a site that I use for one reason and one reason only: the breakdown of aspect shapes in a chart, which makes my job a lot easier. Much like the other websites listed above, it provides mainly the same things. This website also has an internal database of celebrity charts and even a portion on the site where you can see celebrity’s based off of certain planetary placements including planet to planet aspects, planetary house positions, and planets in certain zodiac signs. I utilise this mainly though for seeing a breakdown of certain aspect shapes within a birth chart (i.e., T-squares, Grand Cross, Grand Trine, Cradle, etc.). This site also does come with a list of aspects within your chart, which can be helpful for beginners. There is a synastry option as well, but it does not come with an explanation as to what that means for you and another person. You are able to purchase an astrology book all about your chart as well as a synastry book all about you and your partner, however, much like Café Astrology, I am uncertain how in depth and accurate it is since I have not purchased from them. I would likely not suggest this to beginners simply because there is no key breakdowns, but if you’re curious about what celebrity shares similar placements to you or what your aspect shapes are this is the site to use!
Apps:
Co-Star
This is likely the most widely used Astrology app out there, and the one app I tell clients and friends to steer clear of! What?! Steer clear of Co-Star?! Yep. STAY AWAY FROM THIS APP! Not only does this app have inaccuracies such as not placing planets in the correct houses, the way in which they present your “chart” is via what looks like an excel document list and completely dismiss the “empty houses” in the birth chart. While there is a new option to see the wheel chart and you can look at your friend’s charts quickly, it’s still not accurate. There is no list for your aspects and those are equally, if not more, important to look at when analysing your birth chart. Also, when analysing synastry between you and your friend or significant other, it only takes into account your planets and houses rather than planets, houses, and aspects between you and another person. Not to mention the weird and not-helpful things to do and not do during the day on top of the bizarre daily notifications that have nothing to do with astrology. The only “good” thing about this is seeing your friend’s charts rather than just asking for their information.
TimePassages
Out of all the apps I am going to list, this is by far my favourite and extremely beginner friendly. While you might need to purchase the full version to enter in as many things as you would like, it’s 100% worth it. This app provides you with pretty much everything you need from what the transits are for the day to a complete and in-depth breakdown of every part of your chart and a complete breakdown of a synastry chart. I think out of all of the programs I am listing, if I had to choose just one, this would be the end all be all. Whenever I question how I’m explaining a client’s chart, I use this app as a backup to make sure I am hitting each and every point. The only downside I can think of with this is that they’re still in the works of programming all of the available options for asteroids, fixed stars, and chart calculations. Other than that, this is the BEST program I could suggest!
The Pattern
This is another popular app that honestly I don’t love, but it does have some great perks. The reason I don’t love this app is because I find it more confusing than helpful to utilise. I think it’s really hard to figure out how to view your birth chart since it’s under a weird place. The perks are that you can connect with friends to see how you and the other person are compatible and it also gives you a great breakdown of your daily transits and what to look for during the day. There’s also a new portion to the app where it’s a dating app style in which you can connect with others who either have shared or similar birth charts to yours. Other than that, I find this app to be okay and I probably wouldn’t suggest this to beginners.
Astro Future
This is yet another app that I do love, but wouldn’t suggest to beginners for learning. The app has some great features such as telling you the transits and how it affects your birth chart, however, there are times where it’s somewhat buggy and purchasing the full version is honestly the only way to go if you want to know everything. I don’t have super strong opinions on this, which is why this explanation is shorter than the rest.
Time Nomad
Another program I wouldn’t suggest to beginners honestly. To me, it’s hard to find where your actual chart is and it’s not super user friendly. However, it does have a great breakdown of the transits for the day. The other plus is that you are able to purchase widgets for your home screen to keep track of what’s going on in our solar system, which can be super super useful. Much like Astro Future, I don’t have much of an opinion on it which is why I am not going into depth with this.
Paid Programs:
Luna Astrology
This is the paid program that I utilise for my business and one I love personally. The charts are easy to access, there’s a way to organise it by category, and the best part is the price! Most professional astrology programs like Astro Gold are very costly, some of which are around $500 plus add on options, which is not in everyone’s budget including mine. This is a great options for those on a budget looking to use a professional program without breaking the bank. Luna Astrology currently has a subscription for less than $5 a month, and if you’re a student you can use a discount. The way this program is set up is also beautiful and it’s a complete cloud-based program, so you don’t have to re purchase the program to use it on a different computer system or phone. The downfall of this, however, is that you need WiFi or internet to use this. There are also no explanations of what each placement means, but there is an option within the system to take notes that are automatically saved to the internal cloud. Overall I suggest this to anybody who is looking to start their own astrology business so that your charts look clean and professional for clients to view.
Astro Gold
Astro Gold is one of the top performing and highest rated professional astrology program for Mac users (like myself), and I can understand why. It has really everything you need as a professional astrologer and not to mention how beautiful the chart looks! Unfortunately, the price is what made me not purchase the program because I don’t have the budget to allot $300 for a program at this time. This program also has options to purchase pre-made professional reports that can be really helpful if you second guess yourself or if you don’t want to do the tedious work of explaining each part of a person’s chart, however, the price for that is around $200 per add on. If you also want to switch computers, you have to re purchase the program or if you decide you want to use it on your phone you have to purchase it for either Android or Apple which is around $35. I did download the demo version just to see how it runs and I was overall impressed by how the program worked, I just wish it wasn’t $300!
How To Pull Up Your Birth Chart:
To not bore anybody reading this blog and to shorten it up since it’s all relatively the same way to enter your data in, I have decided to give you a step-by-step tutorial of how to pull up your chart via Astro.com.
Step 1:
Go to Astro.com on whatever browser you decide.
Step 2:
At the top of the screen, there should be three dashes and next to the dashes there are three options: Horoscope, Astro Shop, and All About Astrology. Click on Horoscope.
Step 3:
Once you click on the Horoscope option, there will be a sub section labeled “Drawings, Calculations, Data” and the second option should say “Extended Chart Selection”. Click on that option
Step 4:
Once under this option, there will be a screen up that says “For Visitors Who Do Not Yet Have a User Profile” and below that a button that says “Enter Data.” There should also be an option that says “For Visitors With a User Profile” and below that a button that says “Please Log In.” You can decide to make a profile or not, but please note that making a profile allows you to have a full database of whomever you want, but it does limit the storage to 100 people/events within the system (unless you want to purchase storage). For the reader’s sake, I would choose the visitors who do not yet have a user profile option. Once in there, accept the cookies and the terms and conditions.
Step 5:
Enter in your data. You will need your first name, gender (go with whatever you identify as), date of birth, time of birth (the closer to your exact birth time the better), and place of birth.
Step 6:
Once your data has been entered, there should be a screen with all these options. For my personal readings, I use a round natal chart wheel, the default setting for the house set up, and Tropical Geocentric for the zodiac option (which can be found under the “Zodiac and Houses” section on the website. If you are a beginner, I would suggest keeping the Tropical Geocentric option and changing the House System to either the Equal House System or Whole Sign House system. Once that is done, you are able to click the green button that says “Show Chart” and it will take you to what your chart looks like. You can download this as a PDF or you can print it.
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