David Bowie's Birth Chart

Position in this list blends how conspicuous a feature is with how seldom 1940s births share it. Two angle contacts lead, each rate counting the planet near any of the four angles: the Moon 0°25′ from the Descendant, within five degrees of an angle in about one chart in 9 born in the 1940s, and Venus 1°48′ from the Midheaven, within three degrees in about one chart in 15.

Mars holds third and fourth place, combust at 0°30′ from the Sun (about one chart in 13) and exalted in Capricorn (about one chart in 18). Mercury out of bounds is fifth (about one chart in 8), nine planets above the horizon sixth (eight or more: about one chart in 5), and the Sun–Saturn mutual reception seventh, the most common item here, since a reception by sign between any two planets from the Sun to Saturn turns up in about 45% of charts. The locomotive pattern comes last (about one chart in 4).

Among the eight, five survive any shift of the hour on January 8, 1947: both Mars items, Mercury's declination, the reception and the shape. The other three need nine o'clock or close to it: the Moon's contact begins only at 8:47:03 AM, the Venus contact lapses at 9:05:02 AM, and the horizon count ends at 9:08:57 AM.

Angela Bowie's Backstage Passes, written with Patrick Carr, says he arrived at nine o'clock on the morning of January 8, 1947. Kevin Cann's Any Day Now, a day-by-day chronology of the London years, opens at the same hour at 40 Stansfield Road, as Simon Lucas quoted its first entry in a 2011 magazine article; Lambeth Council's 2016 tribute confirms the address and date. Angela Bowie could not have seen the birth and wrote decades later, so nine o'clock is the best-supported time, though nothing fixes its minute. The clock was Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+0); British summer time did not resume until March 16, 1947.

Four other times circulate, and none cites a record. Lois Rodden's Astro-Data II (1988) took “just before midnight” from David Douglas's 1975 Pinnacle paperback and entered it as 11:50 PM. Cann's 1983 chronology said just after midnight, before Cann himself moved to nine in the morning. Ricki Reeves's The Quindecile (2001) gives 9:15 AM unsourced, the figure Astrotheme calls usual before about 2015, and 10:59 PM is credited at second hand to the BowieWonderworld fan site, which shows no birth time. The two midnight stories put the birth at opposite ends of January 8.

Cast for the same house, all five times keep the Capricorn Sun, the Sun–Mars conjunction, each planet's sign except the Moon's, and the Lahiri Moon in Cancer. The night versions change most of the rest: at 11:50 PM the Ascendant moves to 10°37′ Libra, the chart turns nocturnal, all ten planets shift house and Venus becomes chart ruler in both schemes; 10:59 PM and 12:00 AM also raise Libra, and the latter leaves the Moon at 28°11′ Cancer. The 9:15 AM chart keeps Aquarius and a daytime Sun but moves the Moon and Saturn into the 6th house.

At nine itself the margins are slim. Since each degree of the Ascendant took about 2.7 minutes to cross the horizon, Capricorn would rise had the true moment come more than 9 minutes early, while a late reading has 59 minutes in hand before Pisces. The Moon's house is thinner still: within 2 minutes of nine the Descendant overtakes it and it drops into the 6th house, the smallest margin of any planet, while Mercury reaches the 12th house 6 minutes earlier and Saturn the 6th house 9 minutes later. The Moon did change sign that day, from Cancer to Leo, but 6 hours 6 minutes before the remembered hour.

The Moon at 3°49′ Leo and the Descendant at 3°24′ Leo put the Moon at the very start of the 7th house, the house tradition gives to partners, contracts and declared rivals; many modern practitioners take a Moon just inside that cusp as needs met through other people. Saturn at 6°51′ Leo and Pluto at 12°44′ Leo join it in the house and in Leo. Western astrologers describe a Leo Moon as wanting warmth, recognition and an audience.

The Sun at 17°14′ Capricorn keeps Mars company in the 12th house, both in Capricorn, a sign that Sun-sign writers tie to patience, long plans and authority earned over time. Traditional authors add that the Sun is peregrine there, holding no dignity in Saturn's sign.

Venus at 2°08′ Sagittarius has just crossed the Midheaven at 3°57′ Sagittarius into the 9th house; 8 minutes earlier it would sit in the 10th house. It has no dignity in Sagittarius, so its weight comes from position. Those who read the Midheaven as reputation tie Venus there to a public life built on art, looks or charm.

Mercury at 8°11′ Capricorn sits 24°23′ south of the equator, 0°56′ beyond the obliquity that caps the Sun's own swing, so it is out of bounds; Pluto overshoots northward by 0°08′. Users of this modern idea read such a Mercury as thinking that leaves its sign's habits behind. Mercury is also under the beams, 9°03′ from the Sun, and Placidus leaves Virgo and Pisces intercepted.

The tightest of the 17 major aspects is the Moon trine the Midheaven at 0°07′, then the Moon opposite the Ascendant at 0°25′, both set by the Moon's place on the horizon and both in orb together only from 8:34 AM to 9:23 AM. The closest planetary pair, the Sun conjunct Mars at 0°30′, holds at any hour; writers on modern aspect work link it with competitive will, and in Capricorn with ambition run on discipline.

The Moon applies to Saturn by conjunction at 3°01′, a pairing older textbooks call sober and guarded. Venus trines the Moon at 1°40′, linking the ranking's two leaders, and Saturn at 4°42′. Uranus, modern ruler of the rising sign, is reached from Capricorn only by quincunxes, a minor aspect: from the Sun at 1°25′ and from Mars at 1°56′. Mercury squares Neptune at 2°36′, untouched by the clock.

From Uranus in Gemini forward to the Sun in Capricorn the planets span 208°34′, leaving 151°25′ empty: a locomotive in Marc Edmund Jones's scheme, read by his followers as drive and momentum. That gap, Aquarius through Taurus, leaves the rising sign and the first quadrant of houses without a planet. Only Uranus, in the 4th house, lies below the horizon, and the picture is brief: the Moon sinks into the 6th house within 2 minutes of nine, and once Saturn follows at 9:08 AM fewer than eight planets stay up.

Of the twelve points counted, fire takes five, led by the Leo group, and water only Jupiter in Scorpio, while fixed signs lead the modes with five. West of the meridian lie seven planets, six of them in houses seven to nine, a quadrant astrologers commonly link with dealings with others.

The Sun's upper edge cleared the Brixton horizon at 8:04 AM and its center, which sect reckoning counts, at 8:11 AM; at nine it stood 5°36′ up in the 12th house, a day chart. Under sect rules Jupiter and Saturn are the day's planets, while Mars, a night planet, is out of sect, the harsher malefic in Hellenistic reckoning, and the Moon and Venus are out of sect beside it.

Mars at 16°43′ Capricorn is exalted, with triplicity and face as well, the most essential dignity of any planet in the dignity tables. Combustion tempers that: Mars lies 0°30′ from the Sun, too far out for cazimi, and moves swiftly at 0°46′ a day. The strength score nets these to 69, level with Jupiter, and Mars comes out lord of the geniture for any birth between 8:41 AM and 12:38 PM. The Moon and Mercury also run swift, Venus slow at 0°49′ a day, and Saturn, Uranus and Pluto are retrograde.

The Sun lacks dignity in Capricorn, Saturn's sign, and Saturn sits retrograde and in detriment in Leo, the Sun's. Each occupies the other's home sign, which tradition calls mutual reception and treats as letting each planet act through the other. The humoral formula scores the chart melancholic first, a result that would survive a Capricorn Ascendant, as would Saturn's traditional rule over the chart.

The record dates nine events, each with its source. The earliest is the single “Space Oddity”, released on July 11, 1969, when Bowie was 22. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars came out in Britain on June 16, 1972, and on July 3, 1973, he retired the Ziggy Stardust character from the Hammersmith Odeon stage in London.

“Heroes”, made with Brian Eno and the producer Tony Visconti, was released on October 14, 1977, and Let's Dance on April 14, 1983. On July 13, 1985, he played Wembley Stadium in the Live Aid benefit concert.

Two late releases fell on his birthday: the first single from The Next Day on January 8, 2013, his 66th, and Blackstar, his final studio album, on January 8, 2016, his 69th. He died at home in New York City on January 10, 2016, aged 69, two days after Blackstar appeared.

Closeness is scored on the Sun, Moon and rising signs and on the degrees of the Sun through Saturn. Timothée Chalamet ranks nearest on a shared Capricorn Sun, and Catherine, Princess of Wales, second, adds “Sun within 2° of each other”; Jawaharlal Nehru shares only the Leo Moon and Ratan Tata only the Capricorn Sun. The match leaves out a rising sign that came up less than a quarter-hour before the time given, as Aquarius did, and no other databank page shares the birth date.

Lahiri's ayanamsa for the date, 23°06′, moves each of the ten planets back one sign. In that frame the Sun reads 24°07′ Sagittarius, the Moon 10°43′ Cancer and the rising degree 10°17′ Capricorn: the Leo trio turns Cancer and the Capricorn trio Sagittarius.

Jyotish weighs the Moon's sign, the rashi, above the Sun's, and here it is Karka (Cancer) from midnight to midnight. The lagna, Makara (Capricorn), is sturdier than the tropical rising sign, holding from 8:30 AM to 9:45 AM, so nine o'clock could be off by 29 minutes either way without moving it. Its lord, Saturn, sits at 13°44′ Cancer with the Moon. The three night-time versions give a Kanya (Virgo) lagna.

Saturn regained 6°51′ Leo on July 31, 1976, at age 29.6, and needed three passes the second time, from September 10, 2005 to May 29, 2006, with a retrograde crossing between. Jupiter came back to its Scorpio degree five times, the last on October 16, 2006. Astrologers treat the first Saturn return as a threshold of adulthood.

Computed for 09:00 UTC on January 8, 1947 at 51°27′ N, 0°07′ W, the Stansfield Road house as OpenStreetMap maps it, with precise astronomical calculations, tropical signs, Placidus cusps and the true node. Rates set the chart beside simulated 1940s births worldwide and measure frequency only; the hour ranges quoted for each feature come from casting the chart again at short steps across the Brixton day.