# Horoscopes (/en/docs/guide/concepts/horoscope)
What each of the six time scopes computes, why the palace name on a cell changes, how the childhood scope is derived, and where flowing stars and yearly twelve gods come from.
*For: everyone. Code is at the end of the page*
The natal chart never changes. A **horoscope** is the dynamic information you get by laying time on
top of it. Give a target date and x-iztro returns all six scopes at once.
## The same cell, a different palace name [#the-same-cell-a-different-palace-name]
This is the part of horoscopes people trip over most, so it goes first:
Reading a horoscope means treating the palace the horoscope landed on as "the Soul palace for this
step", with the other eleven re-laid-out around it. So **a cell that is the Wealth palace on the
natal chart may be the Soul palace within some decadal**.
Every horoscope scope hands back its own re-laid-out list of twelve palace names, ordered by slot on
the chart. The natal palace names are untouched; the two sets coexist — when reading results, be
clear which one you are holding.
## The six scopes [#the-six-scopes]
| Scope | Period | Derived from |
| ----------- | --------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Decadal | Ten years | The Five Elements class starting nominal age, plus a direction from gender and year-branch polarity |
| Age fortune | One year | Origin from the year branch's trine group, direction from gender |
| Yearly | One year | The lunar year the target date falls in |
| Monthly | One month | The lunar month the target date falls in |
| Daily | One day | The target date |
| Hourly | One double-hour | The target hour index |
Decadal and age fortune both "advance by age", but under completely different rules, and each runs
its own course; yearly through hourly "advance by calendar". The two tracks run in parallel and
together make up one query's result.
**Nominal age** (虚岁) is East Asian age reckoning: you are 1 at birth and gain a year at the turn of
the year, not on your birthday.
## What each scope carries [#what-each-scope-carries]
Apart from age fortune and the yearly scope, every level has the same structure:
| Field | Meaning |
| ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `index` | Which slot on the chart this horoscope landed on (0–11; slot 0 is the Yin palace) |
| `name` | The scope name, translated into the chart language (`decadal`, `yearly`, …) |
| `heavenly_stem` / `earthly_branch` | This scope's stem and branch |
| `palace_names` | The twelve palace names re-laid-out with this scope's slot as the Soul palace |
| `mutagen` | The mutagen stars raised by this scope's stem, in the order Lu, Quan, Ke, Ji |
| `stars` | Flowing stars distributed across the twelve palaces; empty for scopes that have none |
Age fortune additionally carries the **nominal age** (`nominal_age`).
The yearly scope additionally carries the **yearly twelve gods**: the Sui-qian and Jiang-qian gods
re-placed from the yearly branch. These two groups are a different thing from the two the palaces
carry natally — the natal ones are placed from the birth-year branch, the yearly ones from the
target year's branch.
## The childhood scope [#the-childhood-scope]
Decadals only begin at the nominal age set by the Five Elements class (2 for water 2nd, 6 for fire
6th). The years before that belong to no decadal, and are derived as the **childhood scope**.
The childhood scope cycles through six palaces by nominal age, by the mnemonic "first Soul, second
Wealth, third Health, fourth Spouse, fifth Spirit, sixth Career":
| Nominal age | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | … |
| ---------------- | ---- | ------ | ------ | ------ | ------ | ------ | ---- | ------ | ------ |
| Childhood palace | soul | wealth | health | spouse | spirit | career | soul | wealth | cycles |
When the target date falls before the decadals begin, the decadal field returns the childhood scope
instead, with the scope name shown as `childhood`. The field structure is unchanged, so callers need
no special handling; check the scope name only when you need to tell them apart.
## Flowing stars [#flowing-stars]
The yearly, monthly and other scopes carry a batch of stars that exist only at that level, called
**flowing stars** (运昌 Yunchang, 运曲 Yunqu, 运魁 Yunkui, 运钺 Yunyue, 运鸾 Yunluan, 运喜 Yunxi,
运禄 Yunlu, 运羊 Yunyang, 运陀 Yuntuo, 运马 Yunma, plus 流昌 Liuchang, 流曲 Liuqu … at the yearly
level). They are stored grouped by palace.
A star's scope field says which level it belongs to: natal stars are `origin`, decadal flowing stars
are `decadal`, yearly ones are `yearly`.
## Boundaries change the results [#boundaries-change-the-results]
A horoscope's stems, branches and nominal ages are affected by two configuration switches:
* `horoscope_divide` decides whether the horoscope year turns over at lunar New Year or at the
Beginning of Spring (立春, the solar term around 4 February), and whether the monthly scope divides
on the first of the lunar month or on solar terms.
* `age_divide` decides whether nominal age increments at the turn of the lunar year or only after
the birthday.
Query near the start of a year or around a birthday and these two switches change the returned stems,
branches and nominal age directly. See [Config in depth](/en/docs/guide/guides/config).
## In code [#in-code]
A horoscope is raised from an already-charted astrolabe. Birth parameters, chart language and
configuration all come from the chart, so you supply only the target date and hour:
```python
h = chart.horoscope("2024-10-1", 0)
```
```rust
let h = astrolabe.horoscope("2024-10-1", 0)?;
```
```go
h, err := astrolabe.Horoscope("2024-10-1", 0)
```
Reading the six scopes:
```python
chart = Astro().by_solar("2000-8-16", 2, "female", language="en-US")
h = chart.horoscope("2024-10-1", 0)
print(h.decadal.name, h.decadal.heavenly_stem + h.decadal.earthly_branch, h.decadal.mutagen)
print(h.age.name, "nominal age", h.age.nominal_age)
print(h.yearly.name, h.yearly.heavenly_stem + h.yearly.earthly_branch)
print("rearranged yearly palace names:", h.yearly.palace_names)
print("yearly Sui-qian gods:", h.yearly.yearly_dec_star.suiqian12)
```
```text
decadal gengchen ['sun', 'general', 'moon', 'fortunate']
age nominal age 25
yearly jiachen
rearranged yearly palace names: ['spouse', 'siblings', 'soul', 'parents', 'spirit', 'property', 'career', 'friends', 'surface', 'health', 'wealth', 'children']
yearly Sui-qian gods: ['sorrowing', 'illness', 'initial', 'unlucky', 'downcast', 'tied', 'official', 'consumer', 'wastrel', 'virtuous', 'sinister', 'blessed']
```
Walking the flowing stars:
```python
for palace_index, stars in enumerate(h.yearly.stars or []):
for s in stars:
print(palace_index, s.name, s.scope)
```
Age fortune and the yearly scope each carry one extra datum of their own (nominal age, the yearly
gods), so in Rust their shared fields live under `.base` — but both types implement `Deref`, so
`h.yearly.heavenly_stem` reads directly. The layer is flattened when serialized to Python and Go,
where you write `h.yearly.heavenly_stem` as well.