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Ascendent Calculation
Ascendent Calculation
Date of birth
Time of birth
Place of birth.
Time of Birth: It is recorded for India as IST - Indian Standard Time (and for other countries as
GMT - Greenwich Mean Time). GMT is 5½ hours ahead of IST. But for casting a horoscope, Local
Mean Time is used, which depends on the place of birth.
Place of Birth: Logitude and latitude of the place of birth are used to find the time correction to
be applied to the IST, to find out the Local Mean Time.
Longitude: It is the arc drawn from North Pole to South Pole to mark the location in degrees of
a particular place from a central place (Greenwich). All places are located either to the West or
to the East of Greenwich. For example, the longitude of Bombay is 72° 50' E.
Latitude: It is the arc drawn to mark the location in degrees of a particular place North or South
of Equator. For example, the latitude of Bombay is 18° 58' N.
Sidereal Time: It is the time taken by the earth to make one full rotation. It is not exactly 24
hours, but goes on changing according to increase or decrease in the duration of days and
nights. It is called Vernal Equinox time and it is a measure of earth's rotation with respect to the
equinox, which has a very small retrograde motion. Sidereal time is used for calculation of the
Ascendant.
CALCULATION OF ASCENDANT
For making the horoscope, first of all we have to calculate the Ascendant. Ascendant is the
rising sign at the time of birth. Let us see how the Ascendant is calculated. This will be done
with the help of two books, viz. Table of Ascendants, and Annual Ephemeries, 1993 (for the
year of birth) by Lahiri. These two books can be procured from the market.
Details of sample birth are once again given below. We would calculate Ascendant for this.
Date of birth : 10.12.1993,
Time of birth : 3.50 AM IST
Place of birth : Bombay.
We have indicated the Longitude and Latitude of Bombay as above. These were taken from
page 101 of the book "Table of Ascendants". This book contains the necessary information
about many major cities of India and abroad. If the city required is not given therein, kindly see
the Atlas for these details. And, if Atlas is not handy, nearest city can be taken. But for accurate
casting of horoscope, accurate details are required.
As made clear earlier, in a northern horoscope, Ascending sign is written in the top centre and
then zodiac signs are continued anti-clockwise. Later on planets are placed in the horoscope.
So, to calculate the Ascendant sign, the first Step is to find out the Local Mean Time (LMT).
Step 1
Convert the IST to LMT. There are two ways to find out the correction time to IST to obtain
LMT::
Formula for getting the correction time to IST to find out LMT is 15° = 1 hour, or 1° = 4 minutes
(Please note, Longitude is given in degrees (°), minutes (') and seconds (''), [ 1° = 60', 1' = 60''),
whereas the time is given in hrs, minutes and seconds [1 hr = 60 minutes, 1 minute = 60
seconds]. Do not confuse the minutes of Longitude with the minutes of time.
As per above formula, divide Longitude 72° 50' by 15 to know the LMT. It comes to: 4 hr 51 mt
20 secs. How? This is shown below to facilitate your understanding of the calculations.
{72°/15 = 4 12/15 (i.e. 4 hrs + 12/15 hrs)
12/15 x 60 (to make minutes) = 48 minutes
Hence, 4 hr 48 minutes
Now 50' /15 = 3 5/15 (i.e. 3 minutes + 5/15 or 1/3 minutes).
1/3 x 60 (to make seconds) = 20 seconds.
Hence, 4 hrs, 48+3 minutes, 20 seconds = 4 h 51 m 20 s.
Now deduct 5 h 30 m 0 s (as GMT is +5h 30 m 0 s of IST) from 4 h 51m 20s:
4 h 51 m 20 s
- 5 h 30 m 0 s
- 0 h 38 m 40s
Step II
The next step is to find out the sidereal time for the given date, time and place of birth.
(For afternoon birth, there is no need of this deduction. Correction to increase the time
interval is apllied straight to the LMT).
Now apply correction to increase the time interval (From page 5, Table IV, Table of Asc):
for 8 hr + 1 m 19 s
for 48 m + 8s
for 8 hr 48 m: 1 m 27 s ..... D
Step III
Now to find out the Ascendant, refer to Tables given in the book Table of Ascendants for
various latitudes. Search for the latitude of Bombay (or its nearest place, if the same is not
available). On page 29, Table for Latitude 19° N is given. As given earlier, the latitude for
Bombay, the required place of birth, is 18° 58' N (say, 19
° N).
In this page, we have to search for the Ascendant for the Sidereal Time given above as, 8 hr 25
m 58 s as at E.
Ascendant for
If we deduct the former from the latter, we get 4 minutes = 55 m but we need 2 minutes (8h
24 m + 1 m 58' (1 m 58' is approximately equal to 2') = 8 h 26 m. So for 2 minutes, we get 28 m
(55/2: 27.5, say 28).
= 6s 10° 46'
+ 28'
6s 11 14'
Step IV
Now, apply correction for Ayanamasha for 1993, as per page 6 of Tables of Ascedants, which is
-46'.
- 46'
This means, Ascending sign is Libra (7), and it has travelled 10° 28'in Libra.
Now to place the planets in the horoscopes, longitudes of planets have to be calculated. For
this, we proceed as under:
1.Refer to Annual Ephemeris, 1993. Longitudes of different planets for the entire year, month-
wise, day-wise, have been given as at 5.30 AM IST. On page 30, search the required date, i.e.
10th December. Against this the longitudes for planets on 10.12.1993 at 5.30 AM are
given. But our required birth time is 3.50 AM, i.e. 22h 20 m after 9.12.1993 at 5.30 AM.
2.Find out the longitudes of planets as on 9.12.1993 at 5.30 AM from page 30, and add the
distance covered by planets in 22 h 20 m. This can be done in the following way :
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9.12.1993 10.12.1993 Difference
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s ° ' s ° '
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Sun 7 - 23 - 08 7 - 24 - 09 1° 1'
Moon 5 - 24 - 07 6 - 8 - 36 14° 29'
Mars 7 - 27 - 58 7 - 28 - 43 45'
Mercury 7 - 9 - 10 7 - 10 - 41 1° 31'
Jupiter 6 - 12 - 01 6 - 12 - 12 11'
Venus 7 - 13 - 46 7 - 15 - 02 1° 16'
Saturn 10- 1 - 20 10- 1 - 24 4'
Rahu 7 - 9 - 12 7 - 9 - 14 2'
Ketu 1 - 9 - 12 1 - 9 - 14 2'
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Now we would use the proportional logarithms tables provided in the Annual Ephemeris, 1993
in the end. Horizontally, degrees or hours are given, and vertically, minutes are given.
As calculated above, speed of Sun comes to 1° 1'.
Now, search this figure (1.4043) in the above Table. The nearest figure is 1.4025. This is
written at the cross-section of 0° 57'. This means Sun has traveled 57' in 22 h 20'.