Lunarium Blog

Perhaps the best way to figure out someone's Moon Sign is to use a free online horoscope calculator. There are a few of them available, and they do all the calculations that would otherwise be performed by a professional astrological software. These calculators simplify the job as much as possible. The main benefits of using them are: They make use of the high precision astronomical algorithms (in fact, the same algorithms as those used by my Moon Sign Calculator ). They use a state-of-the-art database of geographical locations and time zone changes — something that my Moon Sign Calculator cannot offer). So these calculators provide the highest possible precision, in terms of time and space. They provide a lot more than just the Moon Sign. You will also get your Ascending Sign, the precise position of your Sun, and many, many other things. They typically provide an interpretation for various astrological factors. These wonderful tools have a few downsides too. The main of ...

I created this calculator several years ago, with the aim to make finding out one's Moon Sign as easy as possible. Since then, the Moon Sign Calculator became very popular: about 10,000 unique visitors use it daily. The strengths of this calculator are: It uses the state-of-the-art astronomical algorithms to calculate the position of the Moon. Most professional astrological programs use the same algorithms. When a person who had a doubt whether the Moon Sign Calculator's result was precise enough gave me her birth details, I calculated her chart using Solar Fire and then compared the position of the Moon in that chart with the result of my calculator. The results were exactly the same.  It is very easy to use. You just need to enter the date and the time of birth, as well as specify the time zone where you were born. The calculator will make all the necessary adjustments and corrections and give you the position of the Moon at your birth with the minute-of-the-arc prec...

I received an email from a person who stated that different sources give her at least three different versions of her Moon Sign, so she was confused. I asked her what those sources were, and she answered that the first of them was a book. That book offered a very simple approach: "you look up your date of birth, and your Moon Sign is listed next to it". If you have a book like that, please do not trust it. The situation with the moon signs is a bit more complex than that. The Moon can change sign at any moment during a particular day, and so to find out in which sign it was at the moment of birth you need to take into account both the time of birth and the time zone of the location where the person was born. Let's consider an example. I have a book by David Wells titled "Your Astrological Moon Sign. Werewolf, Angel, Vampire, Saint? Discover Your Hidden Inner Self". This book offers Moon Tables that were designed to help the reader to find out his or her Moon...

In a very old post on using the information about the Moon's phase and sign to choose a time to cut hair , I followed the same approach that would be appropriate in gardening. Indeed, the way how hair grows is, in terms of biological evolution, similar to the way how plants grow. Now, however, I found an additional information in a medieval astrological manuscript from the collection of Elias Ashmole. To be able to use this information, you need to know what the Mansions of the Moon are . You will also need to use the Universal Lunar Calendar , set up for your location. Here is the list of the mansions from the Ashmole 396 manuscript that are related to cutting the hair, in one or another way: Mansion 1: "Cut your hair and your nails". Mansion 5: "Wash your head, shear your hair". Mansion 7: "Shear your hair and wash your head, wear new clothes". Mansion 9: "Shear not your hair". Mansion 11: "Shear your hair if you will". ...

Right now, I am working on iLuna for Android. It so happened, historically, that the Android version was a bit simpler than the iPhone one (well, at the time I created it, Android was still in version 1, and there was one and only Android phone in the whole world). It offers all the same information, but, perhaps most significantly, it's missing the Month view that allows to see at a glance the whole month, and to navigate by a month at a time. So the first thing I am going to do is to bring iLuna for Android to the same level of user interface sophistication where iLuna for iPhone is right now. The next task is internationalisation (i18n). That's something I should have done years ago, simply because Russian is my first language, and I could easily do a Russian translation myself. So I did it, for the current Android app, but I haven't applied it to the iPhone one yet. I've also got a Korean translation, but I still need to implement it in both apps. Why exactly K...

iLuna was the first smartphone app I ever created. The iPhone version of it was released to the App Store in February 2009, while the Android version was released in the end of the same year. Since then, thousands of people became the users of iLuna, many of them use the app on a daily basis. In fact, it is the most popular of my apps. All my attempts to create something that would be at least as popular as iLuna weren't successful. With all the previous updates to the mobile platform, from iPhone SDK 2.0 to iOS 7, from Android 1.0 to Android KitKat 4.4.4, iLuna just kept working. It was good, because all those thousands of users could rely on the app. But it also gave me an opportunity to delay the updates. Some of those updates were requested by users long time ago, like, for example, the possibility of exporting information from iLuna into a calendar. The app wasn't even updated for the bigger iPhone 5 screen, so it wasn't using the whole screen on the newer devices. ...

In my Moon Sign book , I've written the following: The ruler of Libra Venus gives the Moon-in-Libra people a great natural appreciation of the beauty of the surrounding world, and since Libra is an Air sign, they feel an urge to somehow tell other people about that beauty, to share their adoration of the world. That's why you will find many famous artists who were born with the Moon in Libra. In a different section of the book, I am using an example of Sylvester Stallone as of a typical Moon-in-Libra individual. But it is only now that I've discovered that he is not just a world-famous actor, he is also an artist! His art exhibition in Switzerland a few years ago was entitled "Sylvester Stallone: 35 Years of Painting". I've made quite a number of little discoveries while working on the book, and now, when the book is already finished, I keep making more of them!

This project was the main focus of my efforts over the last half a year. There was a lot of research and gathering data, many ideas waiting to be described properly, and this was also my very first astrological book in English (I do have already two other books published in English but those were about some obscure areas of computer programming). So it was a massive effort. Finally, the book is available and is waiting for its readers. I made sure that the paperback version is available, and it is printed on a cream paper, which I think is very appropriate for the topic of the book - it resembles the colour of the moonlight. I tried to keep the book as affordable as possible, but on-demand printing isn't cheap. Anyway, if you, like myself, still like paper books, you can get a paper version of my Moon Sign book here: The book will also be available, or is already available, for all the major eReader platforms. You can get it right now for: Kindle Kobo It should app...

I just posted an article on Lunarium on how to understand the void-of-course Moon , and here is a good example for it. Friday the 10th of May was almost a whole day void-of-course period here in London. The company I currently work for has submitted an iPhone app to Apple for approval right in the middle of the day.  It would look very ridiculous if I tried to warn them. Programmers are the worst people when it comes to intangible matters (except of me of course! J).  I also submitted an app on the same day, a new version of the Moon Sign , but I did that late in the evening, after the Moon has entered Gemini.  And here is the result. My app was approved unexpectedly quickly, while the company's app was rejected.  Do you still not believe in the importance of void-of-course periods?

Finally, I have written an article which properly, and avoiding technical terms, explains what is the Void-of-Course Moon, how the knowledge of it should be used, and offers an interesting and informative story about how President Reagan used Void-of-Course Moon in his career. You will find the new article here: About the Void-of-Course Moon .

The topic of death is very important, indeed. We avoid to think about this, but none of those who is live will avoid death sooner or later. While the lack of desire to discuss the ultimate departure is totally understandable from a private point of view, it is a shame that Western Astrology as a whole is unable to predict death. Yes, announcing to someone that an astrologer thinks he will die at such and such date in most cases would be cruel and pointless. However, in real life there are numerous scenarios when it can be important to know for how long a certain person is going to live. Both Medieval Western Astrology and Hindu Astrology do pay a major attention to defining the longevity of a person. The Astrology of Death by Richard Houck is perhaps the only widely available and easily readable and comprehensible text on the astrological prediction of death. The author bravely, sometimes even with humour, approaches the tabu topic. The book is full of real life examples and prac...

Reading Astrology of Death by Richard Houck (about which I am going to write a detailed review when I finish reading), I found a reference to an interesting idea, described by Ross Harvey in an article titled The Life Span Revolution . The only problem is that the article was published in an unknown to me astrological magazine named Considerations. Still, I was able to find a copy of the article on Scribd, and then found that the article mentions an interesting method of rectification mentioned in an earlier issue of the same Considerations magazine. I made another search, and was amazed to find that the whole magazine, all its issues, is available absolutely free here:  http://www.freeconsiderations.com/ . Enjoy! That same page also offers a book by Ken Gillman, the author of the articles about rectification which I was so keen on. I've ordered the book, and as soon as I've done with it I'll offer a review.

Moon Sign Calculator is the most popular feature of Lunarium. This is quite natural: the Moon Sign is not less important than the Sun Sign (most often misnamed as "star sign") but finding it out requires some tricky astronomical calculations. Moon Sign Calculator does all those calculations in a split of a second and displays not only the Sign of the Zodiac where one's Moon was located at birth but even a precise degree and minute of that sign, plus a brief description of what that means. Over the years, I was putting together a collection of various well known and not very well known but interesting people who share the same Moon Sign. I had many interesting findings when working on that collection. For example, both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are pioneers in computing, they both led humanity to a totally different understanding of computing.  Isn't it interesting then that both men have the pioneering sign Aries for their Moon Sign? Also, I could often see th...

I believe I have now found the correct way to make the discovery of Dr Jonas available to everyone without jeopardising the idea. The free online version of Jonas Method Calculator (but renamed into Lunar Conception Calculator ) is again available on Lunarium. Everyone can calculate their phase return moments and, if the information is going to be used for an attempt of conception, there is an indication of gender of the child that can be conceived then. There is also an article explaining the idea of the method and describing the research which was done around it: Lunar Conception: a Discovery of Dr Jonas . All this should be sufficient for healthy individuals without a heavy karma who want to conceive a child of a desired gender, or for those who want to use their phase return for achievements in sport.  As for those who are having a problem with conceiving a child, there is a special service offered by Odan Institute . There, you will have an experience...

My Sun/Jupiter firdar started yesterday, and it is amazing how the whole atmosphere in my life has changed overnight. I find firdaria extremely important, especially considering the simplicity of their use. If you don't know about this method yet, here is my website where you will find all the necessary information: Firdaria.com . Another very important and very simple factor to consider when trying to understand your life is the nine year numerological cycle of personal years. I haven't described it in my numerology lessons yet, but I am certainly to do that. Here is a link to my Numerology School .

I came to understanding that having astrology lessons hidden deeply inside Lunarium isn't a good idea. As a result, I created a new website, What Is Astrology , that will now host the lessons and all the related to them resources. I've also published a new lesson, Qualities and Polarities in Horoscope . I hope you will like it. There is still work to do here and there, the text of the whole website is still being copy edited but all the lessons are all there and I am working on the website daily. There is a proper newsletter subscription in place, so if you want to keep in touch, please subscribe.

I am starting a new Numerology School . It is based on my numerology book that was published in Russia about ten years ago and was quite popular. Now I am presenting my work to the English-speaking audience: free lessons of numerology, online numerology calculator, book reviews, reports, and more.

My train to London came 10 minutes late because some brief power outages. The first piece of news that I saw after coming to the office is this: Authorities were investigating a rush-hour power blackout in parts of Southern California, Arizona and Mexico on Thursday that left more than 1 million customers without power and caused widespread traffic jams. The day of power outages across the globe? I will check the transits when I have time.

Sorry, I am keeping silent for two long, so wanted to give you a heads up. I am working on a completely new version of the Five Signs app which could be a completely new app, but I decided that it will be nice to make it available for free to those who has already purchased the app. The new version will come with Facebook integration and a couple of very new features that I hope will make the app a lot more interesting for it owners. The new version of Five Signs will initially appear for iPhone, but soon after that I am hoping to complete the Android version of it.

It was announced that RIM (the maker of BlackBerry) recalls 1000 of its new PlayBooks that were recently launched in the end of retro Mercury period. This is a good example of how things can go literally backwards when something important is done during a retrograde Mercury.