Matthew Henson

Explorer and writer · United States · 1866–1955

Leo 15.8° · born August 8, 1866
Birth time unknown

Birth date sourced. Birth time unknown.The Moon remained in Cancer throughout that civil day. Everything below uses only what the complete civil day settles.

The day, read honestly

The Sun stands at 15.8° Leo, in domicile — the planet in its own sign, running on home rules. Of everything the chart can be read for without a birth time, that is the loudest single fact in it.

Positions at 12:00 civil time in Charles County—a reference instant, not a birth time. No houses, rising sign, angles, or sect were computed.

Where the Sun actually stood

At noon on that date the Sun stood at 15.8° Leo, inside the second decan (10°–20°), whose traditional sub-ruler is Jupiter. The decan is the older, finer division — it is what the sign looks like once you stop rounding it to thirty degrees.

The personal registers

Day to day the chart speaks through Mercury in Virgo (5.4°), Venus in Virgo (26.1°), Mars in Gemini (9.9°): thought with its feet on the ground, attraction that grows by reliability, effort aimed through strategy and words.

The angles that hold

The tightest geometry in the chart puts Saturn a third of the circle apart from Uranus, 0.2° off exact. A trine is an open channel. The two cooperate without being asked, which is exactly why it is easy to spend and easy to take for granted. Behind it, the Sun square Pluto at 0.7°, and Mercury sextile Saturn at 1.0° — both still well inside the orbs this site uses. All of it stands whatever the hour was: each angle was tested from midnight to midnight before it was written down.

Figures in the geometry

The Moon makes no major aspect that survives the day; the old reading gives such a planet autonomy — it acts alone, sometimes loudly.

The classical map

Read against the old dignities, five placements stand out. The Sun in Leo at 15.8° is in domicile — the planet in its own sign, running on home rules; the Moon in Cancer at 21.1° is in domicile; Mercury in Virgo at 5.4° is in exaltation — the tradition’s honoured-guest placement, working at its best; Venus in Virgo at 26.1° is in fall — the tradition’s uphill placement, strength earned rather than given; Jupiter in Capricorn at 24.9° is in fall. The table describes circumstance rather than quality — a planet in detriment is inconvenienced, not diminished.

The shape of the whole

Tallied where the signs are certain — 10 placements whose signs hold for the whole day — the chart gives earth 4, water 3, fire 2, air 1, and cardinal 4, fixed 3, mutable 3 across the modes. An earth emphasis reads as patience with material reality — slow hands, durable results. Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune were retrograde — motion that reverses only from this vantage point, and which the old reading treats as delay used for revision.

The Moon, and how far it can move

The Moon stayed in Cancer for the whole of that day at the birthplace, covering 14.2° between midnight and midnight. That is quick enough to make the exact degree a neighbourhood rather than an address, and slow enough to leave the sign settled. At the noon reference it stands at 21.1°.

Where this comes fromSources, revisions, and exactly what this chart assumes

Source article: Matthew Henson · revision 1366015681
Wikidata: Q976683 · revision 2516597634
Retrieved: 2026-07-26T18:47:50.947Z
Birth date: 1866-08-08 · day precision · proleptic-gregorian
Birthplace: Charles County, United States · Q501319
Coordinates: 38.4800, -77.0100 · from Charles County
Reference instant: 1866-08-08T16:56:02.000Z · noon civil time, not a birth time
Omitted: Rising sign, houses, angles, and sect—all require a birth time.
Unknown-time range: Moon travelled 14.16° · The Moon remained in Cancer throughout that civil day.
Engine: astronomy-engine (repository dependency) · @zodiacs/engine/internal/math
Portrait: Unknown author · public domain · Wikimedia Commons

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