Harmonia Natalis: your birth chart as a plate

An example: the sky above Hoorn on 31 January 1616

Willem Schouten, who was born in Hoorn, sailed with Jacob Le Maire in 1615–1617. The printed journal of the voyage (we read the edition of 1648) says that on 31 January 1616 they had passed ‘the Cape of Hoorn’, the southern tip of South America; Le Maire’s own journal puts the rounding on 29 January, according to the edition of 1945. This plate shows the sky above Hoorn itself at noon (local mean solar time) on that day, as if someone at home had drawn a chart for it.

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Harmonia Natalis: the sky above Hoorn, 31 January 1616Full sizeClose

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The Sun stands at 11° Aquarius, the Moon at 16° Cancer, Mars at 7° Aquarius and Saturn at 21° Aries. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are on the plate too, although nobody knew them in 1616 (they were found in 1781, 1846 and 1930): the plate always shows them, and here they simply stand where they stood.

The live calculator starts in 1850, so for this example we used the long-range JPL ephemeris DE441 with the same programme (Skyfield) and checked every position against a second programme (Astronomy Engine): they agree within 0.03 degrees. The houses are Placidus. The date is on the Gregorian calendar, which Holland already used in 1616.

What is on the plate

• The twelve signs on the outer ring, coloured by element (fire, earth, air, water).
• The Sun, the Moon, the planets Mercury to Pluto and the true lunar node, with their degrees; R marks a retrograde planet.
• The ascendant (AC), descendant (DC), midheaven (MC) and IC, and the twelve houses (Placidus; equal houses above 66° latitude).
• The five main aspects between the planets as lines in the middle: conjunction, sextile, square, trine and opposition.

What it is not

• It is not an interpretation: the plate shows positions, not a reading.
• It has no Chiron, Lilith or asteroids: we do not calculate them.
• If the birth time is unknown, the calculator uses 12:00 and warns that the ascendant and houses are unreliable.

Files you can save

• SVG: vector, scales to any size.
• PNG: 3600 × 4122 pixels, about 300 dpi at 12 inches wide.
• PDF: A4 or US Letter, vector, with an even margin around the plate.
• Wallpapers: for a phone (1290 × 2796 pixels, the wheel only) or a 4K screen (3840 × 2160 pixels, the whole plate), on a near-black background.

Printing it

The plate is a little taller than it is wide (10 × 11.45 inches), so it fits a frame with a mat. Take the PDF to any print shop, ask for matte paper and check the size before you order.

What happens to your details

You enter your birth details in the calculator, as before: they are used for the calculation and not stored. The files are made in your browser from the result on the page. We count only which kind of file is saved (for example ‘PDF, A4’), never what you entered.

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Why ‘Harmonia Natalis’?

The colours and the look are inspired by Cellarius’s Harmonia Macrocosmica (1660). Cellarius did not draw birth charts; the plate and its name are our own.

• Who was Cellarius?