Sundials could be accurate, if used correctly - on sunny days, of course - to about a minute of clock time. In fact, standard (60 minute) hours were conceived of in the 13th century, when Abul Hassan introduced the idea of making all hours of equal length, and only in the 15th century were equal hours in general usage.( 2)Īdditionally, the issue of the precision of timekeeping devices arises. in the summer in the Northern Hemisphere, daytime hours were longer than 60 minutes, and at nighttime, shorter than 60 minutes). Sundials originally measured “temporary hours” of varying lengths depending upon the seasons (e.g. if CST is written in, the hospital adjusted the birth time).Īstrologers who want to explore the charts of people born centuries ago will run into additional issues.
#Hank friedman kala vedic astrology software software
births, there are some years when the states of Illinois and Pennsylvania are ambiguous, but most good software will alert you to these issues, so that you can find out exactly what was written on the birth record (e.g. We used to have to be very wary of daylight savings time and other time zone issues, too, but today’s astrological programs with built-in time change atlases are, in the main, quite accurate. (That event actually inspired me to revise this article.) This also highlights the problem that when a client comes for a chart reading, we may or may not have their permission to adjust the birth time they may just expect to be given a reading on the birth time provided. His new chart, with Scorpio rising, fit him much better than the Sagittarius Ascendant of the wrong chart. This week I had a client tell me that he was born 11:06 pm instead of the 11:30 pm his mother told him. I have also found that mothers do not always remember birth times accurately or confuse the birth times of their children, or switch AM and PM, especially with a birth time near noon or midnight. The clock can easily be off by 5 minutes or more, the birth itself was complicated, the parents excited and focused on the new baby, the time rounded up or down to the nearest quarter or half hour by the nurse, midwife, or doctor, etc. There are many possible reasons for recording of inaccurate birth times. (Of course, statistically, almost seven per cent of people will actually be born at these times, so such birth times might be accurate.) We can also usually anticipate that most birth times, if they are inaccurate, are recorded well after the actual birth has taken place, and that therefore the birth time is more likely to be earlier than the recorded time, rather than later. (where HH indicates the hour, like 11:00), it is reasonable to expect that the birth time may have been rounded up or down. If someone gives us a birth time of HH:00, HH:15: HH:30 etc. Therefore, it is crucial that we know the indicators of an inaccurate birth time, and what astrological techniques to use (and what techniques to not use) when giving readings with approximate birth charts. This is one of the fundamental reasons why astrology has gotten a bad reputation. And when people receive inaccurate readings due to wrong charts, they no longer trust astrology. Every time an astrologer is given a bad birth time, the reading is likely to go awry. Our need to rely upon an accurate birth time is astrology’s Achilles heel. In order to do so, we rely upon an array of astrological techniques, most of which are contingent upon the accuracy of the birth data that we base the chart upon. When a client comes to us for a chart reading, we want to give them the most accurate and worthwhile information.