What do you think of when you hear the word horoscope? In most cases, you probably think of the horoscope column that you sometimes or maybe all the time read in order to find out the forecast for your zodiac sign.

Is there something more behind those words that tell you how your day, week or even year will be like? Can you define what a horoscope is beside the fact that this is a text telling you how the stars influence you?

Let’s discover what are horoscopes and whether someone invented them or not. This article will also give you a sense of how horoscopes are made and what use could these astrological tools bring us.

Horoscopes are in fact the astrological diagrams that show the position of the Sun, Moon and the main planets. They also comprise of the astrological aspects between these elements. This means that a horoscope can be made at any time and it will be suggestive of the astral disposition at that time. One of the most useful horoscopes is the birth chart that reveals the position of the planets at the time of someone’s birth and is said to define that person’s personality and life path.

This clarifies that a horoscope is not just that text telling you how you are feeling today. This kind of horoscope uses the position of the stars to give a general interpretation of the influences on each of the zodiac signs.

The word itself comes from the Greek “horoskopos” that means “a look at the hours”. There have been discovered texts from the 11^th century that use the Latin form of the word and the final English version of horoscope has been in use since the 17^th century.What you should also know is that horoscope is the same as astrological chart, celestial map or chart wheel. 

The creation of a horoscope is a method of divination and has no scientific basis. It does use astronomical data for the positions of the Sun, Moon and the rest of planets and stars but then the interpretations of these positions and interrelations are considered pseudo-scientific.

The first step in the creation of a horoscope is to draw the celestial sphere the space in which the planets and stars will be positioned. Remember that at the time of the chart, the planets above the middle line can be seen while those below cannot be seen. The horoscope has 12 sectors around the circle of the elliptic, starting counter clockwise with the ascendant.

The daily horoscope usually focuses on the position of the Moon to determine which are the changes and forecasts for each of the twelve zodiac signs, because the Moon has a smaller cycle and rotates around the zodiac in just 28 days. Monthly horoscopes are more interested in the positions of Mercury, Venus, Mars and the Sun because these planets change every month, while yearly horoscopes focus on the movement of Saturn and Jupiter.