# 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 takes a palace per nominal age, by the mnemonic "first Soul, second Wealth,
third Health, fourth Spouse, fifth Spirit, sixth Career":
| Nominal age | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| ---------------- | ---- | ------ | ------ | ------ | ------ |
| Childhood palace | soul | wealth | health | spouse | spirit |
The table stops at nominal age 5: the latest start is fire 6th, whose first decadal begins at 6, so
age 6 onwards is never the childhood scope — the mnemonic's "sixth Career" never applies, and there
is no cycling.
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', 'warrior', '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.