I'm doing a horoscope for a baby girl. Her grandmother would like to contribute a piece of art. She would like a chart of the horoscope with just the constellations of the zodiac visible, just the dots and lines, no labels or planets. She would like to draw in the mythological characters over the outlines herself, like an old time celestial chart. She just needs the exact position of the stars on the wheel to do it.
I can see a number of problems here. If you aim for strict accuracy the result will be confusing.
Firstly, there's the issue of signs and constellations. These are different entities,; Westrrn Astrology uses the tropical zodiac for the signs. If this is for the chart you posted about in another thread, then that was the zodiac that you used. It starts with Aries beginning at the March equinox.
However the star patterns or asterisms are based on the constellations of stars. The constellations don't match up to the signs, being about 26 degrees out. So plotting the constellations would not produce a drawing which was easy to visually interpret. The Sun for example would appear to be in the previous 'sign'. The best solution would be to move the constellations forward to line up with the signs. Not accurate but the artistic licence would make for a more satisfactory result.
There is an alternative of using the sidereal zodiac, which is widely used by Vedic Astrologers and a minority of Western Astrologers but that would only be accurate at the cost of rewriting your interpretations and then finding that the relatives complain that you got the signs wrong. The sample you give below is a Vedic Chart and wouldn't match up to Western signs.
That's a significant problem but it's compounded several times over by finding software to produce the chart in a format that will do. I know that Delphic Oracle will produce a 2D star drawing but only as part of a full chart with planets and signs. The only thing I can think of is to then feed the chart into a design/drawing program to edit out the bits you don't want. If your any good with such programs they could well work with some of the other software you've looked at. In that way you may well get to what her grandmother wants but it's not going to be easy, even assuming it's possible.
Aeric said:
As I said above this is an Indian drawing and would not match with Western signs. Personally, I'd go for the artistic licence and have her find 12 constellation asterisms and then tell her how to order them according to your chart. There are actually at last 14 constellations that lie in whole or part on the zodiac and using them all would again introduce confusion, especially as constellations are not equally spaced and overlap.
Going for a stylised drawing would be much more effective,e even if it's not scientifically accurate.
I'll take a look at DO and see if anything can be done with it and report back.