Time Zone Lookup
Under normal circumstances, you don’t need to change the time zone offset that appears after you enter your birth location in the Free Natal Chart Report tool. Please don’t adjust the time zone offset unless you know for certain what you’re doing since the default offset incorporates crucial factors such as daylight savings time and is in the vast majority of cases accurate.
However, if you’d like to check up on your time zone offset value, you can search the city here:
Search the city for historical time zones
Use this Time and Date form to search the city of birth. Note that this link takes you to the excellent Time and Date site to the appropriate search function.
Once there, for example, enter Chicago, then select Chicago, Illinois. A Time Changes in Chicago table will appear. Use the drop-down field, “Recent/Upcoming Years,” to select the correct historical time period.
For example, if you’re looking up a birthday, September 10th, 1978, in Chicago to verify the time zone, select “1970-1980” from the drop-down. Now, the table will show the time zone dates in the 1970’s decade. In 1978, DST started on April 30th at 2:00 AM, and it continued until October 29th at 2:00 AM. Thus the time zone offset for September 10th, 1978 was UTC-5, or -5 hours. Someone born before April 30th in 1978 would fall in the range of UTC-6, or – 6 hours time zone offset, and so would someone born from October 29th at 2:00 AM onward.
It’s important to note that tools such as the one above are excellent but based on current time zone projects from the non-astrological community. While the data is well-researched back to 1970, before that date, time zones are far less reliable. In sum, use these types of tools for astrological reasons with reasonable confidence for birthdates after 1970, and skeptically for dates before 1970.
See also Cafe Astrology’s Free Reports site, including full interpretations of the natal chart, transits, and compatibility.
