Skyscript Astrology Forum

Hey Ruud,

how about YOU post Ms Peary's Chart using Ludwig-Placidus cusps? Provided it isn't too much work for you...

I'm really curious to see which chart is more intelligible and practical for astrological use, the equal houses one or the Ludwig-Placidus. Because you still have to interprete what you see in the chart.

Ruud66 wrote: That is a very cheeky argument
You reveal the weak point yourself when you speak of the "substitute" Ascendant.
At the poles there is no Ascendant, because nothing is rising. The "Sunrise" that happens every year is due to the annual motion, not the diurnal motion.
So, if you don't have an Ascendant, you don't have a house system, isn't it? Or maybe a "substitue" house system?

Yes, you don't have an eastern horizon on the North Pole, because everywhere you look is south.

But regardless if you actually define the ASC, you have two degrees - the equinoxes 0° Aries and 0° Libra - circling around the horizon. And you can clearly define the degree highest above horizon, 0° Cancer, the upper nonagesimal, which is in square to the horizon.

Best wishes,
AP

Astrophilus wrote:Hey Ruud,

how about YOU post Ms Peary's Chart using Ludwig-Placidus cusps? Provided it isn't too much work for you...

Hey AP,
Yes, I fiddled around with this chart a lot. But I don't have astrological software as I do everything on Astrodienst. And they are not happy when people mess up their charts. So I don't dare to make them public.

When doing interpretations, I make two charts. One Equal-house and one Semi-arc houses on the celestial equator (a so-called Mundoscope)
The projection onto the ecliptic of those Semi-arc houses result in a "normal" Placidus division in the zodiac.

With the Equal-house chart you see the interrelationship of the zodiacal signs with the rising sign. In the mundoscope you see the relative prominence in the mundo system: the angularity of the planets.

A combined picture of the above would be the Astrodienst Fixed-Stars chart style.

Ruud66 wrote: Yes, I fiddled around with this chart a lot. But I don't have astrological software as I do everything on Astrodienst. And they are not happy when people mess up their charts. So I don't dare to make them public.

I didn't "mess up" "their" chart, I just turned it 180° around so that the upper half is actually above horizon, and also changed the houses (1-6 below horizon, 12-7 above, as you seem to be doing likewise).

I just find it confusing when the top half is below the horizon, because Above vs Below horizon is one of the most important distinctions in astrology - just think day-chart vs night-chart - and I think this should be properly reflected in the wheel chart. It can be easily changed by putting the ASC on the right side and the IC on the top of the chart, so no problem.

Best wishes,
AP

The Placidus cusps of Marie Peary are like this:

Circumpolar parts of the ecliptic are:
2°28' Tau/Sco to 27°32' Leo/Aqu

Midheaven 3°09' Capricorn (circumpolar)
Ascendant 26°13' Pisces (retrograde)
cusp 12 2°20' Taurus (retrograde)
cusp 12 5°44' Taurus (circumpolar)

The first house runs from 3°09' Cap to 26°13' Psc.
This part of the ecliptic is about to rise, and the circumpolar part of the first house is about to culminate below the horizon.

On the other side of the Ascendant is the twelfth house.
From 26°13 Psc to 2°20' Tau is the part of the 12th house that has just risen above the horizon.
The circumpolar part of the 12th is 5°44' Tau to 3°09' Can and this part is the ecliptic has just anticulminated above the horizon.

The part of the ecliptic between the two cusps of 12 is the very end of the 11th house, part circumpolar, part non-circumpolar.

The western hemisphere is the mirror image of this.

So houses 2, 3, 4 and the greater part of 5, as well as houses 8, 9, 10 and the greater part of 11, are not to be found on the ecliptic.

For the house lords I would use the Equal cusps.

Astrophilus wrote:I didn't "mess up" "their" chart

But I did...

I just turned it 180° around so that the upper half is actually above horizon, and also changed the houses (1-6 below horizon, 12-7 above, as you seem to be doing likewise).

I see your point and what your preference is. One way or another, it requires some gymnastics to get your head around it.
In the end emperical evidence is required to see what's working best.

Best regards

Ruud66 wrote:Midheaven 3°09' Capricorn (circumpolar)

Do you define the Midheaven as the 10th cusp within Ludwig-Placidus? If not, then it can't be a quadrant system.

cusp 12 2°20' Taurus (retrograde)
cusp 12 5°44' Taurus (circumpolar)[...]
From 26°13 Psc to 2°20' Tau is the part of the 12th house that has just risen above th horizon.

Using equal houses, 12th house is from 26°13' Aries (cusp) to 26° Pisces, so this seems close. Interesting!

For the house lords I would use the Equal cusps.

So for practical purposes (judging the chart) you're still using equal houses, because Ludwig-Placidus is lacking house cusps? Why didn't you say this immediately at the beginning?

This Ludwig-Placidus appears somewhat overly complicated, but I confess I can't grasp the astronomical reasoning behind it yet. Seems I should be reading Ludwig's 1930 article first, just out of curiosity.

By the way, what do you think about the MC equal house system? Just like the "normal" equal house system, only cast from MC instead of AC (1st cusp always in square to MC).
I know some astrologers who use this system specifically for Polar horoscopes. Seems reasonable for circumpolar planets, because even if they don't touch the horizon, they will still pass through the meridian, once during anti-culmination (IC) and once during culmination (MC).

This "inter-meridian arcs" might also be a viable method for Primary directions...

Astrophilus wrote:Do you define the Midheaven as the 10th cusp within Ludwig-Placidus? If not, then it can't be a quadrant system.

Wackford discusses this issue at length in his series of artices that I referenced earlier. Maybe his article "Polar Meridians" will make things clearer.
I define the Midheaven as the culmination point of the ecliptic. Normally, this is also the cusp of 10 in the Placidus system. But I also define the 10th house spatially as an area in the sky that must be above the horizon at all times, just like the other houses in the upper hemisphere. Therefore, when the Midheaven is below the horizon, it is no longer cusp 10 on the ecliptic.
The Wackford article is making the point that in such a situation, the Midheaven is the cusp of the circumpolar first house, while at the same time the Ascendant is always the cusp of the non-circumpolar first house.

So for practical purposes (judging the chart) you're still using equal houses, because Ludwig-Placidus is lacking house cusps? Why didn't you say this immediately at the beginning?

But I did say it at the beginning...
In my post of Fri Aug 04, 2023 9:05 am, I concluded with the sentence: "But this also casts doubt on the validity of the Placidus intermediate cusps as determinators of the house lords."

This Ludwig-Placidus appears somewhat overly complicated, but I confess I can't grasp the astronomical reasoning behind it yet. Seems I should be reading Ludwig's 1930 article first, just out of curiosity.

It took me quite a long while before I grasped all this. As I also tried to say in my readme-text: the system only looks complicated because astrologers insist on projecting everything on the ecliptic, a circle unsuited for modeling the primary motion.

Astrophilus wrote:By the way, what do you think about the MC equal house system? Just like the "normal" equal house system, only cast from MC instead of AC (1st cusp always in square to MC).

It would not be my preference.
I'm searching for solutions that make sense globally, not just in a limited band of latitudes. So to me systems like MC-equal houses, but also Meridian, Morinus, Azimuth, etc. are not satisfactory.

My main objection to the MC-equal house system is that the cusp of 1 is totally meaningless.
At least cusp 1 in the Meridian system is the East Point, cusp 1 in th Azimuth system is the Antivertex. Cusp 10 in the Equal system is the Nonagesimal, which is also satisfactory, but cusp 1 in the MC-Equal houses is nothing.

Ruud66 wrote: My main objection to the MC-equal house system is that the cusp of 1 is totally meaningless.
At least cusp 1 in the Meridian system is the East Point, cusp 1 in th Azimuth system is the Antivertex. Cusp 10 in the Equal system is the Nonagesimal, which is also satisfactory, but cusp 1 in the MC-Equal houses is nothing.

Ok, thanks. I agree with the first sentence, this is just what I was thinking to myself. You'd need a system that considers the Antivertex, because only planets passing the eastern Prime Vertical are actually midway up from anti-culmination to culmination.

However, I still think that a secondary, "meridian-only" house system specifically for circumpolar planets might be the best solution. This way you can estimate where circumpolar planets are located in their own 24H circle between anti-culmination and culmination. The horizon doesn't matter for their 24H circle, as they are out of touch with it anyway.

So ideally you should be using a primary, horizon-based system (Equal) for non-circumpolar planets which rise/set, and a secondary, meridian-only system (Azimuth?) for circumpolar ones.