Minderwiz
Congratulations on your first post and welcome to the Astrology part of the forum. You ask some very good questions, and I hope I can help you with the answers.
Dealing with your questions in reverse order:
There are different systems for constructing the houses - basically dependent on whether the division is on the basis of equal time or equal space intervals between houses. You will find some threads on this if you dig back however the it is more than likely that your chart was constructed using Placidus houses, this being the most common. The Equal House system is also quite often used and this simply divides your chart into 12 equal segments begining at the Ascendant. Which is the best system of house division is open to great debate and I think the easiest answer is to use the system that you feel more comfortable with. Try the two mentioned above to start with and as you learn more try one or two others such as Koch or Campanus.
On the five planets all in Sagittarius, from your description it appears that Venus and Saturn are very close to the ninth cusp - as you say they are conjunct the Moon and the Moon is in your ninth. I'd tend to treat them as ninth House if they are within 3 - 5 degrees of the cusp, though I'd also recognise some eigth house influence. Changing the House system may well influence which House they are in - where would they fall if the Equal House System was used?
On the Ascendant - you ought to get the same Ascendant no matter which package you use. The things to check are that you entered your date and time of birth correctly (especially watching that say, 8 a.m. is not recorded as 8 p.m. or vice versa). Check also that you entered your place of birth correctly. It is possible to calculate the Ascendant yourself but without a computer it is a bit of a laborious process involving finding the local solar time of your birth and then converting that to something called sidereal time and looking up the result in a table of Houses. Many of the introductory books, such as Alan Oken's Complete Astrology, or Parkers' Astrology will tell you how to do this.
If you can post your details - time, date, place I can do it for you to save time.
Look forward to seeing you around
Dealing with your questions in reverse order:
There are different systems for constructing the houses - basically dependent on whether the division is on the basis of equal time or equal space intervals between houses. You will find some threads on this if you dig back however the it is more than likely that your chart was constructed using Placidus houses, this being the most common. The Equal House system is also quite often used and this simply divides your chart into 12 equal segments begining at the Ascendant. Which is the best system of house division is open to great debate and I think the easiest answer is to use the system that you feel more comfortable with. Try the two mentioned above to start with and as you learn more try one or two others such as Koch or Campanus.
On the five planets all in Sagittarius, from your description it appears that Venus and Saturn are very close to the ninth cusp - as you say they are conjunct the Moon and the Moon is in your ninth. I'd tend to treat them as ninth House if they are within 3 - 5 degrees of the cusp, though I'd also recognise some eigth house influence. Changing the House system may well influence which House they are in - where would they fall if the Equal House System was used?
On the Ascendant - you ought to get the same Ascendant no matter which package you use. The things to check are that you entered your date and time of birth correctly (especially watching that say, 8 a.m. is not recorded as 8 p.m. or vice versa). Check also that you entered your place of birth correctly. It is possible to calculate the Ascendant yourself but without a computer it is a bit of a laborious process involving finding the local solar time of your birth and then converting that to something called sidereal time and looking up the result in a table of Houses. Many of the introductory books, such as Alan Oken's Complete Astrology, or Parkers' Astrology will tell you how to do this.
If you can post your details - time, date, place I can do it for you to save time.
Look forward to seeing you around