Introduction to Astrodienst for New Astrologers
This information would’ve been extremely useful to have in one place when I first started using the website to seriously study astrology, so I thought I’d put it all down somewhere, both for me, if I ever forget something, and for others, especially new astrologers. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Disclaimer in bio.
Part One: What is Astrodienst?
Astrodienst is the modern cornerstone of the astrology community, particularly astrology bloggers. Sometimes you’ll see it referred to plainly as astro.com. If you have any real intention of familiarizing with astrology, having a grasp on how to properly use this site is pretty crucial.
It offers a program that produces multiple types of charts, and offers a variety of customizable factors to do so, including the ability to select which house and zodiac systems you use, and a ridiculously long list of asteroids, fixed stars, and hypothetical objects to include. It’s, in my experience, the most reliable free astrological calculator out there, by far.
Astrodienst also owns the Astro Databank, a compilation of astro data and basic charts available to the public. The data included comes from celebrities, historical figures, and anonymous persons whose information was collected in the process of astrological research. There is a helpful search system for quickly pulling up relevant data, though it isn’t perfect or comprehensive.
@fourr-eyes I finally did it, lmao. Thanks for the reply, it’s a large part of what motivated me, more so than the likes, etc.
Part Two: Making Your Own Account
First, we have to make an account.
Go to astro.com.
Look in the upper-right corner of the page, above the blue title and menu bar. You should see the words My Astro next to an icon of a person. Click it, and then select Login from the drop-down menu that appears.
In the lower box, there are two options: ★ Create a horoscope immediately, as a Guest User and ★ Create a free registered user profile. Either is fine, but if you want to save your charts, I highly recommend clicking the second option. (Otherwise, click the first, and go straight to part three.)
Fill out the information required - it’s not too much, and you don’t have to provide your real name if you don’t want to. Follow whatever instructions it gives you - I can’t remember if it requires an email verification tbh, and I’m not making a whole new account to find out.
Part Three: Assembling Your Personal Databank
You now have the ability to save personalized astrological data to your databank.
If the site doesn’t automatically take you to a data entry form page after registry, look in the upper-left corner of the screen. In the blue menu bar, you should see the extended menu icon, which looks like a stack of three white horizontal lines. Click it, then under the My Astro category, the lower clickable option should be a bullet list icon with the words Stored Astro Data next to it. Click that.
This will take you to your personal Astro Databank, which will be empty if your account is new. Click the blue rectangular button that says + Add new astro data.
Fill out the form - it requires a name (which doesn’t need to be real, so long as it’s recognizable to you for later use), a date, a time, a place, and a selection between whether the subject is a Man, Woman, or Event.
Unfortunately, though there’s no real difference between the basic charts created for men or women, choosing Event prevents person-specific chart factors, so if you are nonbinary, you should probably just pick whichever of the two genders to make life easier, but that’s just a suggestion.
If you do not want to put your own data in, or if you just want to research celebrity or public charts, you can also save charts directly from the site’s public database.
Go to the Astro Databank.
Either go to the upper right corner to the search box and search and click the name of the subject you want data for, or use the research tool to discover subjects that fit your purpose. (Use of the Research Tool covered below.)
The first section of the chart should contain a pale blue box of basic information like name, birth name, and typical chart information. Directly underneath this blue box is a link that says add [Subject] to ‘my astro’. Click that.
Clicking it should pull up the main Astrodienst home page. Navigate to your personal Astro Databank, as covered in the previous section. You should see the data of the subject you selected saved in your database.
Part Four: Making Use of the Astro Databank
If you don’t have a particular figure in mind, and are looking to discover subjects who fit certain parameters instead, you can use the Research Tool.
Go to the Astro Databank.
The second section of the home page is titled Astrodatabank Research Tool. Under its description, you’ll see a link that says Access to the research tool. (Here is a direct link - I’ve provided these steps in case you lose track of it or if the URL changes for some reason.)
This will mostly require some experimentation on your part, as what to do next depends on the research or other purpose you use it for.
As an example, let’s say I want to see if there's a correlation between Sun conjunction Neptune and being a talented musician.
I start with the first section, titled Categories, and scroll down to Vocation. Clicking that, I scroll down to Entertainment/Music, and click the triangle next to it to see the types of vocations I can choose to pull. I am looking for correlation with a single individual’s creative musical talent, so I’d probably select Composer, Instrumentalist, Song Writer, and the three Vocalist options.
I could stop here, but due to my experience with the tool, I know that if I click Notable, and then Extraordinary Talent, there’s an option that’s called For Music, so I click it just in case. Selecting multiple in the same list like I’ve done means that a subject can have one or the other to qualify for the search results; they don’t need both.
If I wanted to make both a requirement, I’d go under the list and click the checkbox next to the word and... then make my second selection there.
Now, I navigate over to the side that lists Birthdates and Options. I don’t touch the days and months side of Birthdates much, but I do usually change the default 1900 - 2022 to my preferred stretch of 0 to 2000, to filter out those even younger than me and include historical figures from earlier times.
Under Options, I go down to Ratings, which tells you how reliable the birth time is. I deselect C, as a minor safeguard for accuracy. You don’t have to do this - I don’t always do.
Then, still under Options, I go past House System - though you can select Whole Signs or another preference if you like, although personally I find it more useful to wait until I can use the real chart maker to verify - down to Orbs, then click the first option, Conjunction, which I set to 7º. Usually I prefer a tighter orb, even for conjunctions, but I’ll be lax today.
I could quibble with the Other category, but I like the default settings, so I’ll leave that for you to figure out. You can change things like the Pars Fortunae formula used, the North Node used, etc.
Finally, I make my way down to the astrological half of the research tool. The first list is under Have and All [✔︎] Objects which is just where I need, it, as I’m looking for subjects who do have a specific planetary placement. I select Sun.
The second list is by default on In Any of [✔︎] Places. Since I’m looking for an aspect correlation, I open the dropdown menu and select In Any of [✔︎] Aspects To instead. Conjunction is the first option, which I select.
The third list is now locked at Any of [✔︎] Objects which is what I need. I select Neptune.
I scroll to the bottom of the search tool and click the green rectangular button that says Show Results.
I now have a selection of 464 subjects who meet my requirements of having the placement of Sun Conjunct Neptune and being musically talented.
If I want to whittle it down further, maybe change the category so I’m looking specifically at singers, or maybe decreasing the orb to just keep the selection tighter, I can scroll to the top or bottom of the page and click the blue rectangular button that says Back to Search, and it will take me back to the tool, with my initial settings preserved for me to tamper with.
Part Five: Generating Charts to Your Preference
Now that you have your data saved or input, you can start to make your charts.
Click the menu icon in the top-left. Go down to Free Horoscopes, then find Horoscopes Drawings & Data, then from there click Extended Chart Selection.
Where it says Horoscope, click the drop-down menu and pick the subject you want to read for, if it isn’t selected already.
Where it says Chart type, click and pick the type you’re looking to create. Options include Natal, which I recommend starting with, as well as various forms of Synastry, Composite, Transit, Progression, and more - and that’s just for Round charts.
Now, you can usually get away with just these steps, but if you're starting out, then before we run off to generate and read the chart, it’s important to set the options correctly according to your preferences so we can save them as your personalized default settings.
So, first of all, which kind of astrology do you reference most often?
If you prefer Western astrology, go to Zodiac and houses, click the drop-down menu next to House System, and select Placidus. Then to the right, next to Zodiac, make sure it’s set to Tropical and that the word Geocentric is selected instead of Heliocentric.
(You can always experiment with Koch, Whole Signs, Equal Signs, or any of the other house systems later, but if you’re just starting out, keep it simple and select Placidus for now.)
If you prefer Vedic astrology, go to Zodiac and houses, click the drop-down menu next to House System, and select Whole Signs. Then to the right, next to Zodiac, set it to Sidereal. A new drop-down menu with the word Ayanamsha above it should appear for you to click. Scroll up to select Hindu/Lahiri (0.53º diff. to Fagan). Beneath that, make sure the word Geocentric is selected instead of Heliocentric.
Hardcore traditional Vedic fans can also navigate down to Display and calculation options to select Descending Node (found under Calculation options) and Uranus - Pluto off/on (found under Traditional astrology options) to get rid of the newer generational planets and stick to the core seven and make Ketu visible.
Then if you like, you can change the Aspect options.
Personally, I like to have to all objects selected. I’m fond of asteroids, even knowing they are significantly less pertinent than the planets. However, you can customize these settings as you like. There are other options to change whether Chiron, the lunar nodes, etc. have aspects shown.
You also have the option to include quintile/biquintile and semi square/sesquiquadrate. I have both checked by default, though half the time I deselect the latter to keep things neat.
If you’d like an orb table to use as a reference, you can add that here.
Finally, what I think is one of the most important factors in the calculator is the % Reduce/increase orbs option. Next to this option is a little box where you can control how tight the orb must be to register in the chart and in the aspect grid. I have mine set by default to 65%, and when focusing on asteroids specifically I decrease it to 45 or 50%. Those are just suggestions, though.
If you plan to share a chart but don’t want to reveal your name, you can click the option anonymized (without a name).
The final section, Additional objects, is where you can add mathematical points, Asteroids, Fixed Stars, and Hypotheticals.
The limit is ten extra objects, not including the Pars Fortunae, Vertex, Lilith, Chiron, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, all of which you can add for free. From the basic Additional objects list, I usually include all the ones I listed, in addition to Nessus (which counts as one of the ten).
If you have asteroids you use consistently that aren’t in the main list, you can look them up in the alphabetized list. Say you want to know your Aphrodite, Dionysus, Lucifer, and Groom placements - you would look up each by clicking the corresponding first letter and either scrolling until you find it or using cntrl+F/cmmnd+F and typing it in.
The numbers by which asteroids are kept track and entered into the calculator will appear in the little text box. If you know the number already, you can just type it directly into the little box as well.
Once you have all of the settings adjusted to your liking, you can save them as default so you don’t have to enter them every time.
Click the blue rectangular button that says Show the Chart.
The chart will display, but that’s not what’s important. underneath the section that determines the horoscope subject, are three pale gray rectangular buttons. Click the one furthest to the right that says Save default settings.
Your settings are now saved - they can be altered either through the normal chart-making process or by going directly to your user profile (extended menu icon>My Astro>UserProfile) and selecting View/edit personal default settings, then going down to Standard drawing and clicking the link that says Edit this next to it.
Part Six: Reading Your Chart
Now that your chart is generated, it’s time to go over how to and the best way to read your chart.
If you are looking at the signs and degrees of the objects, or need an aspect table for reference, do not waste your time trying to zoom in on the little one provided under the round visual of the chart. Instead, click the little gray box that says PDF Additional tables.
The first page will be a comprehensive list of the objects you calculated, and their signs, longitude degrees, houses, speed, latitude, and declination. To the right, there will also be a smaller second list dedicated to signs and degrees, as well as declinations, of house cusps. The Ascendant and Medium Coeli are listed at the bottom as well, if you use Whole Signs.
The second page is a full-sized aspect table that makes it much easier to see the type of aspect and its orb. Do yourself a favor - for aspects, always look at the PDF. That little box on the initial image is not worth the eye strain lmao.
If you need references for what symbols and terms mean, the astrodienst website has a comprehensive guide hidden somewhere, but it’s easier to just reference images like the ones I’m providing here, for aspects, signs, and objects.
Thanks for reading, and I hope this is helpful to some people. I know it’s long as fuck and also got repetitive and jargon-y at times, but if you have any questions, just let me know. ♡