Astro Bestie University

Getting Started

Set Up, Mobile, and the Lay of the Land

Astro Bestie reads the real sky against your own birth chart. Everything you see is calculated for your exact birth date, time, and place, so nothing here is a generic sun-sign horoscope.

Setting up your chart

The first time you sign in, Astro Bestie asks for your birth details. These are what every reading in the app is built from.

The first screen you see. Birth time matters more than people expect, so use a birth certificate if you have one.

Enter your name, or leave it blank if you'd rather not be greeted by name.
Enter your birth date and birth time.
Start typing your birth city and pick it from the list. Astro Bestie works out the latitude, longitude, and the correct historical time zone, including daylight saving.
Hit Save chart.

Don't know your birth time? Enter your best estimate and carry on. Your houses and rising sign depend on the time, so those will be approximate until you find it, but everything else still works. You can change your details any time from Birth chart → Edit birth details.

The quick tour

After your chart is saved you get a one-screen tour of what lives where. You can bring it back any time from the ? button at the top of any page.

The welcome tour. The ? button at the top right reopens it, and also gives you a refresher on whatever page you're currently on.

Accessing Astro Bestie on mobile

Astro Bestie runs in your phone's browser, and you can add it to your home screen so it opens full screen with its own icon, just like an app. Nothing to download.

iPhone and iPad

Open app.getastrobestie.com in Safari. This only works in Safari, not Chrome.
Tap the Share button at the bottom of the screen — the square with an arrow pointing up.
Scroll down the list and tap Add to Home Screen.
Name it if you like, then tap Add.

Android

Open app.getastrobestie.com in Chrome.
Tap the three dots at the top right.
Tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app).
Tap Add or Install to confirm.

Signing in once on your phone keeps you signed in, so the icon takes you straight to Today. Everything syncs with whatever you do on a computer.

Finding your way around

Everything in Astro Bestie sits under six tabs:

Today — your daily snapshot: what's exact today, your tasks, and space to write.
Transits — the deeper dive: what's active now, a calendar, and time travel through any transit's past and future passes.
Journal — everything you've written, newest first.
Co-Create — projects and goals timed to the astrology that supports them.
Birth chart — your whole chart, placement by placement.
Ask Astro Bestie — chat with your chart, your transits, and your journal all in context.

Two add-ons add more inside those tabs: Path to Purpose under Birth chart and Transits, and the Ritual Cookbook under Co-Create.

Tap the ? on any page for a reminder of what that page does. It's page-specific, not one generic help screen.

Settings, dark mode, and text size

These live in your account rather than on any of the six tabs, which is why they are easy to miss. Tap the circle with your initial at the top right of any page. Your account opens with three tabs across it:

Account — your profile, your birth details, and exporting your data.
Appearance — light or dark mode, larger text, reduce motion, and a switch for the underlined glossary words if you'd rather read without them.
Billing — your plan and any upgrades.

Today

Your Daily Home

The Today tab has everything you need to ground yourself in the astrology of right now. You'll get a personalized horoscope, plus the tools you need to work with it: a journal text box, a to-do list, and a place to ask Astro Bestie follow-up questions.

The Today page. Each section opens and closes, so you can keep it as short or as full as you like.

Today's Sky

Your daily horoscope is written fresh for your own active transits, once per day. It's the lived meaning of the day rather than the technical astrology, because the transits themselves are listed right underneath.

It's written once a day and then it stays put. Coming back later shows you the same horoscope rather than a new one, so you can return to it through the day. Go deeper with Astro Bestie opens a conversation about it.

Transits active today lists what's actually happening, split into what's activating your chart and what's happening in the wider sky.

Transits active today, expanded. The chips along the top filter what you see: personal hits to your chart, Moon aspects, ingresses, mundane sky-to-sky aspects, and lunar events.

Reading the chips. Personal means the transit is between the current cosmic weather and your birth chart. Mundane means the transit reflects the movement of planets through the sky that affect the world at large. Lunar event is a new moon, full moon, quarter moon, or eclipse. Turn off what you don't want to think about today.

Work with today

Write about today — a journal entry already attached to the day's transits.
Plan today — project tasks due today plus your own to-dos, which can repeat daily, weekly, every two weeks, or monthly.
Ask about today — opens Astro Bestie already anchored to the day.

Any intention you set for a transit in advance appears here on the day that transit arrives. That's the point of setting them early.

Transits

What's Active, the Calendar, and Reading One

A transit is a planet moving through the sky and the angle it makes to a point in your birth chart, activating that part of it. This tab is where you track them.

Currently active transits, grouped by where each one is in its arc.

The four views

Calendar — your transits, journal, and tasks on one timeline.
Current cosmic weather — what's active right now.
Deep dive — search the full catalog.
Zodiacal releasing — a timing technique, part of the Path to Purpose upgrade. Upgrade

Exact today, coming up, winding down

Active transits are grouped by where they are in their arc, which tells you how to treat them:

Exact today — at its peak. This is the one to lead with.
Coming up — still building. You can feel it, but it hasn't landed.
Winding down — past its peak and loosening.

The calendar

The week view. Void-of-course Moon periods run along the top; each day lists what's exact and when.

Every layer toggles independently through Filters: personal transits, ingresses, mundane aspects, retrogrades, the lunar cycle, moon sign, void of course, your journal entries, and your tasks. Week, month, and agenda views are all available.

Void of course means the Moon has finished making aspects in its current sign and hasn't entered the next one. Traditionally a poor window for starting things that need to stick.

Reading a transit

Tap any transit to open it. This is the most information-dense screen in the app, so here's how to read it.

A transit opened. Note the dignity after the planet's sign, the two houses involved, the exact date and time, and the in-orb window.

The title names what's moving and what it's activating: Venus in Libra square the Lot of Fortune in Cancer.
The dignity follows the sign — domicile, exaltation, detriment, fall, or peregrine. It tells you how much power the planet has to deliver.
The houses read as 1st house → your 10th: where the transiting planet is, and which part of your life it's activating.
Exact on is the precise moment it perfects, in your local time.
In orb is the window either side where you can still feel it.

Going further

Go deeper writes a longer reading for that transit.
Ask about this opens the chat already anchored to it.
Write about this saves a journal entry attached to it.
Time travel lets you pick any past or future year and month to see that transit's other passes — reflect on ones that happened, set intentions for ones ahead.

Underlined words anywhere in the app have a definition. Hover or tap to read it without leaving the page.

Hovering an underlined word opens its definition in place, with a link through to Learn if you want more.

Journal

Writing That Files Itself

The journal isn't a separate diary. Anything you write can attach to the parts of your chart it's about, and it then shows up on those pages too.

The six types

Every entry can be tagged as one or more of: intention, reflection, dream, synchronicity, ritual, or general. Use the filters to see just one kind.

Writing an entry

The entry composer: formatting, type tags, attachments, and photos.

Hit New entry.
Give it a title, or leave it blank and it takes the name of whatever you attach.
Write. You have bold, italic, underline, three heading levels, and bulleted or numbered lists.
Tag it under Tag this entry as. More than one is fine.
Use + Attach to connect it to a transit, a placement, a house, a natal aspect, or a project.
Add photos if you want them.
Save entry.

Why attaching matters. An entry attached to a transit appears on that transit's page forever. The next time that same transit comes around — often years later — what you wrote last time is waiting for you. This is the single most valuable habit in the app.

Attaching to a transit that isn't today's

The transit list inside an entry follows the entry's own date, not today's. That catches people out, because a new entry opens dated today and so offers today's transits. There are three ways to reach any other transit.

Change the entry's date. In a new entry, set the date to the day the transit was exact. The transit list reloads for that day and you tick whichever ones you want — as many as apply.
Start from the transit itself. Find it under Transits (Current cosmic weather, Deep dive, or the Calendar), open it, and hit Write about this. The entry attaches to that transit whatever today's date is.
Pin it to one specific pass. On a transit's page, the pass history lists every past and future time it perfects. Each one has Attach to this entry, so you can file your writing against the 2023 pass rather than the current one.

One entry, several attachments. Nothing limits you to a single one. Add as many transits, placements, houses, aspects, and projects as an entry genuinely touches, and it appears on every one of their pages.

A limit worth knowing. The + Attach search box only searches transits from the entry's date — it's headed Transits (today) when the entry is dated today. Placements, houses, natal aspects, and projects are always searchable there. To attach a transit from another day, use one of the three routes above rather than the search box.

The planet journal

Open any planet as it moves through the sky right now, or as it sits fixed in your birth chart, and everything you've written about it collects in one place.

Co-Create

Projects Timed to the Astrology

Co-Create is a space for project planning with astrology.

Co-Create. Each project holds an intention, steps, notes, and an optional link to a transit or lunar cycle.

A project open. Step 1 holds your goal and an optional cosmic connection, Step 2 your plan, and Step 3 your notes plus a space to think it through with Astro Bestie.

Hit New.
Name the project and set your intention — what you're actually reaching for.
Add steps, each with a due date. They can repeat daily, weekly, every two weeks, or monthly.
Optionally link the project to a transit or lunar cycle that supports it.
Keep notes as you go, and mark the project active, paused, or complete.

Steps appear on your Today page on the day they're due, so you don't have to remember to check the project.

You can ask Astro Bestie about a project from inside it. She'll have that project's intention and steps in front of her.

Ritual Cookbook

The Pantry, the Recipe Builder, and Ritual Bestie

The Ritual Cookbook is an add-on that turns astrology into something you actually do. It lives under Co-Create → Ritual Cookbook, and it has two halves: The Pantry, a library of individual rituals, and the Recipe Builder, where you combine them into one practice. Ritual Bestie is the chat that knows both.

Don't have it yet? The tab shows as Ritual Cookbook 🔒 with a preview of what's inside. Everything below unlocks together.

The Pantry

Fifty-three rituals, described as ingredients rather than prescriptions. Each one tells you what it's for and how long it takes, so you can pick by the time you actually have.

Three ways to narrow it down:

By what you need — boundaries and protection, calm and regulate, clarity and decision, confidence and visibility, devotion and sacred structure, energy and motivation, grief and tenderness, ritual basics, and the Wheel of the Year.
By the time you have — Micro (1–2 min), Quick (5 min), Medium (15–20 min), or Deep (30–60 min).
By element or moment — Air, Earth, Fire, Spirit, or Water; morning to set the tone, midday reset, evening close, before a hard conversation, after a hard day, or in the moment.

Or don't choose at all. Ask Ritual Bestie to build your perfect ritual — she'll pick against your actual transits, or put a whole recipe together for you. She's at the end of this tab.

Opening a ritual

A ritual open. Element, time, and category up top; the schedule box puts it on your Today page; Reflect on it saves a journal entry attached to the ritual.

Every ritual page carries the same parts:

The tags — its element, how long it takes, and what it's for.
Schedule it — pick a day, optionally repeat it daily, weekly, every two weeks, or monthly, and hit Add. It then appears under Rituals for today on your Today page on the day it's due.
When to use it — the situations it's actually for.
The practice — the steps themselves.
Reflect on it — a journal entry already attached to that ritual, so what you wrote is waiting the next time you open it.

The Recipe Builder

A recipe is several rituals in order, each with its own time box — one practice rather than seven separate things to remember.

You can start from a starter recipe — an all-purpose ritual plus one for each point on the Wheel of the Year — or hit + Build a recipe and assemble your own from the Pantry. Each card shows its ingredients in order with their timings and the total length, so you know what you're committing to before you open it.

Editing a recipe

A recipe open. Rename it, say what it is for, reorder or drop steps, change any timing, then schedule the whole thing.

Give the recipe a name and say what it's for under Purpose of this ritual.
Reorder steps with the arrows, remove one with the ×, or add more from the Pantry.
Change any step's minutes. The total at the top updates as you go.
Rewrite a step's how-to in your own words. Reset how-to puts the original back if you'd rather.
Set a start date and a repeat, then Add to my list to put it on your Today page.

Editing a starter recipe doesn't spend it. Change what you like and save it as your own; the original stays where it was.

Ritual Bestie

Ritual Bestie is a second conversation, alongside the usual one. Open Ask Astro Bestie and switch to the Ritual Bestie tab.

She knows everything Astro Bestie does — your chart, your transits, what you've written — plus how rituals are built and every ingredient in your Pantry. She asks you a few things before she suggests anything, rather than guessing.

Ask her to pick. Tell her what's going on, or how much time you have, and she'll choose against what's actually transiting your chart.
Ask her to add it. She can put a ritual straight onto your Today page.
Ask her to build one. "Make me a morning practice" or "put those together" and she'll assemble a recipe, in order, timed, ready to save.

She offers these as a button you tap to confirm. Nothing is added to your list or your cookbook until you say so.

Birth Chart

Placement by Placement

Your whole chart, read through a traditional (Hellenistic) lens with whole-sign houses.

The chart page: element and modality balance, the wheel, every position, and the aspect grid.

Elements and modalities summarise the chart's overall balance at a glance.
The wheel shows your placements and houses.
Positions lists every point with its exact degree and sign. ℞ marks a retrograde planet.
Aspects is the grid of angles between your own natal points.

Tap any placement to open it in full: what it means, the house it rules, its condition, and everything you've ever written about it.

Lots of Fortune and Spirit

Two calculated points that traditional astrology treats as central. Fortune speaks to circumstances and the body; Spirit to action and what you set in motion. Both are included with your membership.

Path to Purpose Upgrade adds the other five Lots — Eros, Necessity, Courage, Victory, and Nemesis — with full readings for all seven, and Zodiacal Releasing alongside them. One upgrade, both tools.

Ask Astro Bestie

The Conversation

Astro Bestie can see your whole chart, what's transiting right now, and everything you've written. She's built to reflect what's actually there, not to predict.

The chat panel. It opens beside whatever you're looking at, or expands to full page.

Where you can reach her

The Ask Astro Bestie tab — the general conversation.
From the Today page — arrives already anchored to today.
From any transit — anchored to that transit.
From inside a project — with that project's context loaded.

What she can do

Look up exact transit dates, planetary positions, dignities, and sky-to-sky aspects. She computes these rather than recalling them, so the dates are real.
Connect what's happening now to what you've written before.
Start a project, save a reflection, or file writing onto a transit's page — she offers it as a button you confirm.

Two things worth knowing

Dictation. Tap the microphone to speak instead of typing.
Save the conversation. Any chat can be saved into your journal, onto a transit's page, or into a project — and you can trim it first so only the part that mattered is kept.

Give her replies a 👍 or 👎. A thumbs-down lets you add a note about what went wrong, and those go straight to Dana.

Hot Tips

Getting More Out of It

The things that make the biggest difference, and that most people don't find on their own.

Ask Astro Bestie to do it for you

You don't have to go and fill in a form. Tell her in the chat — "start a project for getting my sleep back on track", or "save that to my journal" — and she'll offer it as a button you tap to confirm. She can start a project, save a reflection, or file writing onto a specific transit's page.

Put photos in your journal

Journal entries take photos, not just words. The altar you set up, the sky that night, the page from your notebook, the thing you made. Tap + Photo in the entry composer. They're private to your account and shown through short-lived links, never public URLs.

She knows tarot too

Every placement in your chart sits in a decan, and every decan carries a Golden Dawn tarot card. Open any placement in your birth chart and you'll see its card. Astro Bestie reads that lore as part of the picture, so if tarot is your language, ask her about it.

Attach what you write to the thing it's about

The single highest-value habit in the app. Attach an entry to a transit and it lives on that transit's page forever. When the same transit comes back — often years later — what you wrote last time is waiting. This is the part that compounds.

Talk instead of typing

Tap the microphone in any chat and speak. Useful when you're processing out loud and don't want to stop to type.

Keep the good conversations

When a chat gets somewhere real, save it. You can drop it into your journal, onto the transit you were discussing, or into a project — and trim it first so only the part that mattered is kept.

Set intentions before the transit arrives

Anything you set for a transit ahead of time surfaces in Today on the day it perfects. Write it while you can still think clearly about it, and let it find you later.

Learn

The Glossary and Learn

You don't need any astrology background to use Astro Bestie.

Underlined words throughout the app have a plain-language definition. Hover or tap.
Learn collects the whole vocabulary the app uses, explained in everyday words, grouped by topic. Skim it once and the rest of the app starts making sense.

To open Learn, tap the ? button at the top right of any page, then choose Learn library. You can also get there from any glossary definition by tapping "Read more in Learn".

The Learn library. It opens with the four building blocks — planets, signs, houses, aspects — then defines every term the app uses.

House meanings are written as life areas rather than numbers wherever possible — "home, family, and roots" rather than "the 4th." The numbers are there when you want them.

Upgrades

What's Included and What Isn't

Your membership includes Today, Transits, the Birth chart, the Journal, Co-Create, Ask Astro Bestie, the Calendar, and Learn — plus the Lots of Fortune and Spirit.

Path to Purpose Upgrade

One upgrade, two tools:

The 7 Hermetic Lots — Fortune, Spirit, Eros, Necessity, Courage, Victory, and Nemesis, each placed in your chart with a full reading of what it governs and how its ruler is doing.
Zodiacal Releasing — a Hellenistic timing technique that reads your life as chapters and peak periods, presented as your Soul Story, a side-by-side comparison of Fortune and Spirit, and a plain explainer of how it works.

Both unlock together. If you don't have it, you'll see a preview where those sections live.

The Ritual Cookbook Upgrade

A separate add-on: fifty-three rituals organised by what you need and how long you have, a builder for combining them into one timed practice, and Ritual Bestie, a chat that knows your chart and every ingredient in the book. Rituals you schedule land on your Today page. See for the full walkthrough.

Troubleshooting

Common Questions

My birth time is wrong, or I found the real one

Birth chart → Edit birth details. Everything recalculates immediately, including your houses and rising sign.

Astro Bestie says she couldn't answer

Usually a temporary connection problem. Hit Try again. If it keeps happening, check whether you've used this month's conversation allowance — it resets at the start of each month, and everything you've saved stays put.

Nothing is showing in Today

Some days genuinely have nothing closely aspecting your chart. That's a real answer and a fine one. Check the filter chips too, in case something is switched off.

I can only attach my entry to today's transits

The transit list follows the entry's date. Change the date on the entry to the day that transit was exact and the list reloads for that day. Or open the transit itself and use Write about this, which works whatever today's date is — and its pass history lets you pin the entry to one particular past or future pass. See for all three routes.

Where is dark mode? Where are the settings?

Tap the circle with your initial at the top right of any page, then the Appearance tab. Dark mode, larger text, reduce motion, and the glossary-underline switch are all there. They are set per device.

Where did my entry go?

Everything is in Journal, newest first. If you attached it to a transit or placement, it's also on that page. Use the type filters if the list is long.

Does anyone else see what I write?

No. Entries and photos are private to your account. Photos are stored privately and shown through short-lived links rather than public URLs.

Can I use it on my phone?

Yes. The whole app works in a phone browser, and you can add it to your home screen so it opens like an app — see .