Our Method

How it works

Memento Astra is built like a tool, not a mood board: you provide a recorded moment (date, time, and place), and the engine computes placements, houses, angles, and derived signatures. From that chart data, it produces a threshold reading, structured interpretation focused on transition, closure, and what endures.

  • Data-first computation
  • Location + timezone resolved
  • Structured reading output

Overview

From a date, a time and a place to a reading, in four steps.

You give us a moment and somewhere on Earth. We work out exactly where every planet was in the sky from there, build the chart that comes out of it, and read what the chart says. Nothing is looked up in a table and nothing is rounded off along the way, so the same details always give you the same chart, today or in ten years.

  1. Normalize the moment

    Validate date/time formats, handle missing time cases, and prepare inputs for timezone conversion.

  2. Resolve the place

    Turn a human place string into coordinates (lat/lon), and derive the correct timezone for that location.

  3. Compute the chart

    Compute planetary positions, angles, houses, and derived signatures (aspects, clusters, emphasis).

  4. Assemble the threshold reading

    Generate a structured interpretation focused on transition, closure, and what remains from computed features.

What you enter

Three things, in the words you would normally use for them.

Date

A calendar date. This anchors everything else: the positions of every body are read for that day, from the ephemeris rather than from a table.

Time, if you have it

The time decides the angles and the houses, and nothing else. Without it the chart still gives you every planet and sign, and says plainly that the Ascendant and houses are missing rather than filling them in from an assumed noon.

Place

A town and country, in plain words. It is resolved to a latitude and longitude, and to the timezone that place was actually keeping on that date, which is frequently not the one it keeps today.

The same answer every time

Give the same date, time and place twice and you get exactly the same chart twice. Nothing is rounded off, cached from somebody else’s answer or nudged between runs.

What gets computed

The chart is not an image first. It’s data first.

Internally, the engine produces a chart object: positions, angles, house cusps, and derived features. The UI can render this as a wheel later, but the reading is generated from the structured results.

Placements

Planetary longitudes (and optionally speed/retrograde flags) form the baseline signature of the sky.

Houses + angles

Ascendant/Descendant and MC/IC are computed from time + location, then house cusps are derived from the house system.

Aspects + clusters

Tight aspects, conjunction chains, and stelliums are detected to find compression points where meaning concentrates.

How the threshold reading is produced

Interpretation is structured, not improvised.

The death-time chart isn’t used to predict death. It’s used to describe a boundary: the geometry of entry/exit (angles), where meaning concentrates (house emphasis), and what is compressed into the moment (clusters/aspects). The reading is assembled from these measurable features.

Angles as crossing

Ascendant/Descendant and MC/IC are read as axes of passage: entry/exit, descent/ascent, private/public closure.

House emphasis as closure

Loaded houses are treated as where the system concentrates meaning at the end-state: inheritance, remainder, release.

Compression points

Tight configurations are treated as concentrated signatures, not “good/bad”. The question is: what becomes unavoidable here?

Birth chart comparison (optional, but powerful)

If you generate both charts, you can compare recurring signatures: repeated angles, repeated house emphasis, repeated planetary relationships. Repeats can suggest continuity; reversals can suggest release; closure patterns can suggest resolution. The comparison is meant to be readable, not mystical.

FAQ

Common questions about method and accuracy.

  • They move quickly relative to clock time. If the recorded time is off by minutes, angles can shift noticeably, which changes the reading structure.

  • Yes. Placements can still describe the sky’s baseline signature. But for a threshold reading, you’ll usually want to test a time window to understand angle/house sensitivity.

  • You can generate any chart data, but the method and language on this site are tuned for transition and closure. Use the birth chart tool for baseline work.

  • A structured chart object (data-first) that can be rendered visually, plus a reading composed from computed features like angles, house emphasis, and tight configurations.

Learn the basics

The parts of a chart, explained from scratch.

Read the blog