Moira 6.9.8 - Relationship Charts, Draconic Frames and Classical Sources

Release date: 2026-09-29. Upgrade path: 6.9.0 to 6.9.8.

Moira 6.9.8 corrects the synastry, composite and draconic surfaces found while building consumer tools on them, adds an explicit unknown-birth-time contract, and admits several classical techniques from their sources: al-Biruni's star-based mansions, Hellenistic rays, the D60 deities, Sayanadi avasthas and the BPHS Ashtottari start. It also tightens light deflection, heliacal apparition selection and Sothic chronology, and exposes new REST surfaces for lunar orientation and the Sothic cycle.

Key Changes

Relationship Charts

• Synastry aspects no longer compare two unrelated natal speeds as applying or separating, and count one node (the True Node) instead of doubling every node contact.
• The composite route now defaults to the reference_place method.
• Five internal synastry bookkeeping routes were removed from the REST surface (see the compatibility notes).

Draconic Charts

• Draconic positions keep their source body's speed and retrograde state.
• Draconic charts carry the source chart's house cusps and angles rotated into the draconic frame, and state whether they are geocentric or topocentric.

Unknown Birth Time

• Chart, houses and relationship requests accept time_unknown. The Moon is left out and houses and observer-dependent angles are refused, so a guessed noon time can no longer pass as a real one.

Classical Techniques

• al-Biruni star-based lunar mansions with unequal boundaries at each mansion's marker star for the date.
• Hellenistic rays (aktinobolia) are now evaluated.
• Named Shashtiamsha (D60) deities from BPHS chapter 6.
• Sayanadi avasthas and sub-states from BPHS chapter 45, with the classical effects.
• Ashtottari Dasha start and balance per BPHS 46.17-22, with Abhijit counted.
• Jaimini Chara Dasha can continue into a second cycle.
• Antiscion contacts can report their motion state.
• A Sabian Symbols degree lookup.

Astronomy and Validation

• Gravitational light deflection follows the IAU SOFA Ld / ERFA eraLd formulation in Python and in the native evaluator.
• Heliacal and acronychal risings require a real transition from invisible to visible, with daily scans anchored to local mean solar midnight.
• Sothic results distinguish found and not-found years, name calendars explicitly, and no longer present schematic projections as observed epochs.
• Uranian hypothetical bodies use receipted source orbits and return apparent geocentric positions with speed.
• Midpoint dials fold longitude by the dial modulus; the previous projection folded twice.
• The current small-body element and node catalog validation is closed for 11,223 asteroids and 497 comets; apsidal-passage accuracy remains a named frontier.

REST Service

• New POST /v1/phase/lunar-orientation and POST /v1/sothic/* routes.
• Batch requests are capped at 128 items, and costly eclipse, occultation and Sade Sati responses are cached per process.
• Longitude returns accept admitted asteroids and comets.

Compatibility Highlights

• Five /v1/synastry/* bookkeeping routes were removed.
• The composite route's default method changed from midpoint to reference_place, which in 6.9.8 requires reference_latitude; midpoint is rejected. (Correction: an earlier version of these notes said midpoint could still be requested. 6.9.9 defaults the reference latitude to the mean of the two birthplaces.)
• Synastry aspects between two charts carry no applying/separating motion.
• Midpoint dial coordinates and planetary-picture orbs change for every chart (the former values were wrong).
• Ashtottari Dasha periods can change for births where the former start rule differed from BPHS.

Install

pip install --upgrade moira-astro==6.9.8

For the optional REST service:

pip install --upgrade "moira-astro[server]==6.9.8"