Penelope is an App for exploring a wealth of data on planetary and constellation movement over time, from the past and projected forward into the future. It is an astronaut's view, from outside our galaxy looking in. As though someone had pressed the Solar System thoughtfully flat, rather than the classic view of planets projected onto the ecliptic. The name Penelope means Weaver, and the aim of this App is to give you new insights into weaving the tapestry of your life.

Penelope can be used as an aid to interpreting life's events, your emotional layout and nature's quirks, often best in hindsight, but with good comprehension in foresight too. Start by paying attention to your day and look for patterns of constellation and planetary alignment with your emotional response, for example consider the moon's shift through the constellations for short term patterns.

Online astrology resources can be very helpful in understanding general patterns of emotional response to certain planets, but considered with care as they are not universally consistent. It's always about you in the end, as everyone begins with a unique character setup and only some commonalities apply. So do your homework and pay attention to yourself. At very least Penelope will help you understand yourself better as you think about how you respond to the things around you.

You can also employ Penelope to look up your birth date and discover your correct star sign and planetary layout, that starting character setup. Your star sign is identified as the constellation that the sun is passing through at the time of your birth. Due to changes in the Earth’s spin the date when the sun passes through each constellation has changed since the Babylonian's defined the star-sign time brackets approximately 2500 years ago, which are the most commonly used time spans in most media. Even updated time brackets that have been posted on the internet to define the births of the last century will be a day out or so, as this is constantly changing a little.

Over two thousand years of observation have found that these planetary movements affect us and the environment in partly understandable yet complex ways. While we do not yet understand the physics of these impacts, more recent ideas suggest that it is through gravity waves that these planets affect our health and environmental systems. For health, as a gravity wave passes us, it causes a vibration in the blockages in our energy system, this energy system being collectively known as Meridians in Traditional Chinese Medicine. These vibrations then influence the emotional choices we make and may be the basis for disease. Where all disease is caused by emotional blocks.

Each planet and each star is accurately positioned on a map of the Earth, showing when they are directly overhead. The app uses astronomy data from NASA and a global GIS dataset. Each constellation is a set of lines that connect the stars that form this constellation. If the constellation looks a little different from what you have seen elsewhere it is because more stars in each constellation have been used, not just the major ones. It's a view that has the advantage of spreading everything out to help you understand the motion of the planets and constellations relative to their positions above the Earth.

The Roman Numerals at the top of the view indicate Astrological Houses, which can be used to understand the significance of a planet's impact. It is thought that the angle at which a planet is found in the sky changes the impact it has on emotions and the environment, deepening or lessening that impact.

And if you notice a planet moving backwards, this is a planet going into retrograde. The planet does not move backwards in its orbit, it just appears to do so because of the relative positions of the planet and Earth and how they are moving around the Sun.