Points
Included: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Ascendant, Midheaven. The Lunar Nodes are included as an interpretive layer and in the data appendix — the South Node as familiar ground ("where you\u2019ve been"), the North Node as developmental direction ("where you\u2019re headed") — offered as symbolic hypothesis, never destiny. By the coverage rule, the Nodes carry no Gate affinities and touch no scoring until founder review assigns weights and reader-resonance data covers them. Chiron is included as data and an interpretive layer. It is propagated from the JPL Horizons #171 ICRF initial state with Astronomy Engine's gravity simulator, including the Sun and eight planets. Checks against JPL Horizons at five-year anchors from 1990–2060 showed a maximum longitude deviation below 0.02°. Chiron remains outside all scoring, and boundary-sensitive results are flagged. Shared configurations (T-Square, Grand Trine, Grand Cross, Yod) are detected across both charts at a 4° pattern orb and reported as geometry, never scored. Solar returns mark each person’s current symbolic year. The dedicated Structural Year report uses the reader’s chosen return location to calculate houses and angles; embedded couple-year context remains planets-only when no return location was requested. Eclipses and declination contacts are now available as disclosed appendix-beta timing and relationship layers. Still excluded: asteroids, midpoints, and minor aspects — reviewed coverage before inclusion. Current transit and solar-return reports are calculated in our own browser engine and interpreted through the same structural claim boundary. Third-party report text and branded interpretations never enter our synthesis or calibration.
Aspects and orbs
Major aspects only — conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition — with orb-graded Power in the astrodyne lineage: an exact contact carries full Power, decaying with separation. Contact valence (Harmony/Discord) is computed separately from Power, so a strong contact can be strongly supportive or strongly straining. Minor aspects are excluded in v1 for the same coverage rule as minor points. Transit work (conversation timing) uses a deliberately tight 3° orb.
What an affinity weight means — pressure, not rulership
The map from chart points to the 22 Structural Gates states how strongly contacts involving a point channel symbolic load onto that Gate — pressure that tests the Gate, never rulership of its virtue. The worked example: Neptune carries a 0.9 weight on the Clarity Gate. That does not claim Neptune supplies clarity — tradition and this engine agree it does not. It states that Neptune contacts strongly test clarity: dissolution, idealization, fog pressing on shared agreements. Whether a given contact supports or strains the Gate is carried by that contact's Harmony/Discord, not by the affinity weight.
Houses and time
Placidus is the requested house system. When Placidus is astronomically unavailable or numerically undefined at a high latitude, the engine uses Porphyry and identifies that fallback in the chart metadata and appendix; it is never presented as though Placidus was used. Exact times support angles and houses. Approximate times are stability-sampled and all time-sensitive findings are limited accordingly. Unknown times use a noon reference, exclude angles from relationship contacts, and downgrade house-sensitive findings to exploratory rather than presenting them as established. Pillar-level analysis is planets-only by design, so uncertain time cannot reverse it.
Timing — the conversation, not the fate
Where the reading suggests a conversation, the engine may name upcoming windows when transiting Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn closely aspects the natal points that carry the lead Gate's affinity. These are symbolic emphasis windows for scheduling the talk. Slow outer-planet contacts (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) are reported separately as major weather — sustained background seasons over a twelve-month horizon during which the Gate\u2019s themes stay emphasized; seasons, not events. They are never predictions of events, outcomes, or the relationship's course.
Vimshottari-inspired long-cycle timing
The advanced timing beta uses the standard Lahiri/Chitrapaksha sidereal reference, subtracting the disclosed ayanamsha from the calculated tropical Moon. The Moon’s 27 equal nakshatra segments select the traditional Ketu → Venus → Sun → Moon → Mars → Rahu → Jupiter → Saturn → Mercury sequence and its received 7/20/6/10/7/18/16/19/17-year allocations. Period balances use the Moon’s exact fraction through its nakshatra and a disclosed 365.25-day timing year. Mahadasha and antardasha boundaries are stability-sampled when birth time is uncertain. This is symbolic long-cycle context alongside transits, never an event-prediction system.
Six-factor strength — inspired, not mislabeled
The appendix beta is explicitly Shadbala-inspired, not a complete classical Shadbala calculation. It reports six auditable factors on a 0–60 working scale: elevation from the classical debility point (Uchcha principle), directional alignment, day/night temporal fit, apparent motion state, the fixed natural-strength baseline, and a disclosed LBLS contact environment. Every factor, weight, exclusion, and coverage total is printed. Unknown birth times withhold directional and temporal factors. The combined index cannot change Gates, Pillars, relationship metrics, or recommendations until it is benchmarked and reviewed.
Eclipses and declination
Structural Weather searches global solar and lunar eclipses with the bundled Astronomy Engine and flags supplied natal conjunctions or oppositions within 3°. A global event is never presented as locally visible, and an eclipse contact is never treated as an event promise. Couple reports compare geocentric declinations at a 1° orb: a parallel is an equal declination north or south of the celestial equator; a contra-parallel is equal magnitude on opposite sides. They are a second coordinate layer beside the longitude grid, outside all Gate and relationship scoring.
Technical references
The sidereal anchor and precession equation follow the published Swiss Ephemeris sidereal-time documentation. Planetary coordinates and global eclipse searches use the bundled implementation of the open-source Astronomy Engine. Eclipse-event cross-checks may be made against NASA’s Eclipse Web Site. The exact working parameters and strength weights are distributed in advanced-astrology-config.v1.json so an expert reviewer can inspect them directly.
The Davison chart, explained — and the Relationship’s Year
What a Davison chart is: a real chart cast for a real instant and place — the exact midpoint of two births in time (the average of the two UTC birth epochs) and in space (the spherical great-circle midpoint of the two birthplaces). Unlike a composite chart, which averages planetary positions into a sky that never existed, the Davison sky actually occurred; every position can be verified against any ephemeris. We read it as the relationship’s own structure — a third entity distinct from either person.
Houses, honestly: Porphyry cusps are attached only when both birth times are exact, because angles are the most time-sensitive part of any chart; otherwise houses are omitted and the report says so. Internal contacts use the same deterministic aspect engine as everything else, with self-pairs removed and one record per unordered pair — the numbers appear in the appendix for independent checking.
The one-demand-voice rule: the Davison chart carries no Gate, Pillar, or Lane scoring. Its affinities await founder ratification, and until then every engine treats the layer as scoring-inert — a constraint enforced by our validator, not just stated. In the Complete Couple report, where the covenant-event chart and the Davison co-exist, an editor verifies that the two entity-charts converse rather than contradict.
The Relationship’s Year (beta): the instant the transiting Sun returns to the Davison Sun — the year the relationship’s own chart is in. It ships as planets-only appendix evidence: the midpoint is a derived location, so no relocated houses are claimed. A standalone Relationship Year product is deliberately deferred until the Davison layer has accumulated calibration data.
Calibration and the boundary
The relationship metrics are provisional and are being calibrated against reader-reported resonance (the two-minute survey on every completed report). The standing claim boundary of every product: the chart is the hypothesis; your shared life is the evidence. Behavioral confirmation belongs to the DIAL instrument, not to any chart.