Astrotheoros: A New Astrology Software

Adam Elenbaas

Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from nightlight astrology. Today I am joined by an Alumni from nightlight astrology and a longtime friend of mine, Brandon Reid, who is the creator of a new astrological software program called Astrotheoros that we are going to show you today.

I’m really excited to just show you what he’s built and what he’s made. I think this is one of the most innovative and special things I’ve seen created by a nightlight alumni over the years. And Brandon was actually someone who came through my programs in the very first year that I was doing them, back in 2010 and 11 and I’ve kept in touch with him over the years and a super talented Astrologer and a really nice astrology software program that I think many of you may also find really useful.

So glad to showcase some nightlight talent and a really cool astrology program for you guys today as a little bonus episode. Before we get into it, as always, please remember to like and subscribe. We’re trying to push to 80,000 subscribers by the spring equinox. That’s the next goal we’ve set for ourselves. We did a little research over the summer; we found out that a lot of people who watch don’t have not yet subscribed. And so if it’s free and obviously it helps us grow our business and our community. So we really appreciate it.

You can find transcripts of these daily talks on the website, which is nightlight astrology.com, of course, as I’m making this we’re in enrollment season here. So don’t forget that our new classes start on November 16. There’s need based tuition available for that as well. And in all of my regular content videos, I have been tagging on additional information videos about the course.

So if you watch just about any other of my normal videos, you’re going to find some information about the upcoming course at the end of every day’s content. So on that note, I am super stoked to have Brandon Reid here with me today. Hey Brandon.

Brandon Reid

Hey Adam, thanks for having me, man.

Adam Elenbaas

Yeah, dude, I can’t, I mean, I think it wasn’t it 2010 and 11, yeah,

Brandon Reid

Yeah. So my daughter just turned 14, so 14 years ago, she was born in 2010 so it’s right about that time, Yep, yeah. I remember you were a brand new dad, Yup, yeah, very, you know, I for any of the nightlight people or people thinking about doing your classes. I’ll just throw another testimonial out there, because back then, I was like, super broke having a baby. You know, it was crazy times and but I saw astrology classes on reality sandwich. And I was like, Hey, man, I’m interested in this, but, and I was like, You know what? I’m not gonna be able to afford it.

And you, you weren’t having it. So you, you worked with me, and you came up with something that I could actually do. And you know, since then, astrology has been this, like, super important part of my life that frames like how I think, and, you know, how I help my friends, and you name it. And it’s been such a like, treasured part of my life, and always appreciated it.

Adam Elenbaas

Dude, yeah, yeah, man, I Well, thank you for that. And I just fondly remember, and in the beginning, there were classes that I did in New York City, and then for a handful of people, I did one-on-one sessions on Zoom, or whatever it was we were using back then go to meeting. I think it’s GoToMeeting. Yeah, I think so. But anyway, we were, yeah, we met regularly for a year or two and just kept studying together. And, yeah, it’s just really cool to see that there’s a number of people from those early years who are still just doing astrology and creating things and having a practice, or like you building a software program. So when you told me that you had done this, first of all, I just My jaw dropped, not because I don’t know anything about technology. So to me, someone making an astrology app is like someone building they might as well be building a rocket ship like I just don’t it’s a really impressive to me, but I want to, I just want to start by asking you so that the program, which we’re going to do a little walk through, we’re going to show everybody about, let me just put it up on the screen here. The program is called Astrotheoros.com Well, that’s the program’s name. You can find it@Astrotheoros.com Brandon is the creator of this software program. Tell me just a little bit about what got you motivated or inspired to create an astrology software program? Yeah,

Brandon Reid

I appreciate it, you know. So I’ve been doing design for about 15 years. I went to college for design and stuff like that. I’ve been coding for 10 plus years now at, like, small companies and like big global scale companies and I, like every astrologer out there, use astrology software. And, you know, there’s always been, like. Uh, you know, different sorts of ergonomics that I really wanted out of some astrology software, and I haven’t been able to get. And then also, you know, I always have, like, a program on my phone and a program on my computer and something else on my iPad, and they don’t sync with each other. So I’m always, like, moving charts, which is this, like, really scary activity where I’m like, I hope I don’t get any of the details wrong. So I wanted to make something cloud based that I could access, like, anytime, anywhere, and that I could really, like, throw down my own, like, user experience design and make it like a really cool, tactile experience that I think astrologers deserve.

Adam Elenbaas

Yeah, so when you say ergonomic for the people like myself who sort of know what that word means, it has to do with the ease and accessibility of the actual like keyboard and manipulation of the commands and controls, right? Yeah,

Brandon Reid

You know things like intuitive keyboard shortcuts for me. Like, my relationship with astrology is like digital first, like, I was raised in the digital era, and I’ve always gotten a lot out of being able to manipulate the chart and kind of just rove through time really easily, yeah, and that’s one thing I really focused on, is just the ability to, like, quickly row through time and different increments. Watch, you know, the progression of different planets over their full cycle. And, you know, you know, watch how Pluto will, sort of like, swoosh through part and then slow down and apart and be really heavy in an area. And things like that I think are really novel, and astrologers of the past, mathematically, they could probably do that, but being able to just do it tactically, tactilely, and just really experience it is such a special thing. And so yeah, the ergonomics with that. You know, there’s like righthanded, left-handed support. I’ll show you some, some of that in the app, but just making sure it’s really intuitive, easy for everyone to understand. There’s no, like, super complicated, you know, settings menus you got to dive into play with stuff, right?

Adam Elenbaas

Yeah, I feel like there is definitely an issue, not only for myself, but a lot of astrologers, when it comes to having one thing on your phone, one thing on your computer and chart, you know, you wish they could sync up. So, yeah, that’s that’s a really neat feature. I really love that when, when you were kind of sharing some of this with me before we got on today, I’m wondering, how long does it take someone to create and develop a software program like, did it take years? Does it take months? I have no idea. Yeah.

Brandon Reid

So this is something that has, like, massively humbled me about astrology. Like, not only the astrologers of the past, from like, you know, the 1500s where they, you know, the scholars were, like, hand, you know, writing like ephemerides and stuff like that. Hand, calculating those. But even, like the computer programmers of the past that have, like, engineered, just, it takes wicked engineering to figure this out. So, like, when I first approached it, I thought, Okay, I’m going to have some reference, you know, day, and then any day from there will be like, just some calculus to figure out where the planetary placement should be. And nah, nah. Its planets like affect each other’s gravities, and the calculations are just enormously complex to know exactly where they are, and then you have to sort of like plot them on a geospatial, you know, in a geospatial perspective. So it’s enormously complex. I learned a lot, and getting it to run in the browser was another like was probably my biggest contribution, because I get to leverage a lot of the technology from these from the past, like or not even past the present, like the Swiss Ephemeris and stuff like that. Just really awesome software. It’s been around for a good long while that powers a lot of astrology. So for the timeline, I’ve been, I’ve taken attempts at this, like, multiple times over the past, like, four or five years, and then I had a good breakthrough about a year ago, and it’s just been nights and weekends, you know, really humbled. I had some real Saturn moments where I came up with this phrase that is it just says it is inevitable, if I keep doing this inevitably, that it something will happen. So just keep going. Just keep going.

Adam Elenbaas

You know, you know, nice, good work. First of all, because I just, yeah, I mean, I have, I think there’s a similar feeling when. Working on difficult projects that I can identify in my life and work. But yeah, the patience when it comes to the calculations and the coding and all of that I can only imagine. So that’s just super cool. And like I said, I have all the, you know, 1000s and 1000s of students that, not by now, who have come through nightlight. I don’t think anyone’s ever created a software program that we don’t have a lot of programs created, because it’s very difficult, it’s very specialized, so there aren’t a ton of them, which means that new developments and new offerings or opportunities and software programs to people, for people to shop through, is really exciting. On that note, I want to tell people you can find this program at Astrotheoros.com and Brandon is going to give us a little walk through of all of his favorite features and how you can also access it. So I’m going to just like, I’m going to hand this over to you, Brandon, you can screen share. Are you ready for me to put it up on the screen? Yep. Okay. And I am going to, all right. So you know what? I’m going to take this banner off so we can see it a little bit better. Here is the Pro, and it’s, it’s browser run.

Brandon Reid

So, yeah, so, right, yep, yeah, exactly. This is just the website. If you go to astrotheoros.com you’ll just see the website. I’ve got it up there on a demo because to me, this is the biggest achievement, is being able to run and calculate astrology charts in the browser. So I was just like, I’m gonna just put it on the homepage and and then I also wanted people to be able to see the logo, which I’ve got, like, nice and big. Let’s love that. I love the logo, and I didn’t put it in the actual app, because I feel like, when you’re doing client readings and stuff like that, you you don’t want, like, some logo, right? So, yeah, all you have to do is, when you go to Astrotheoros.com you can just sign up, you can log in, and here it is. It’s running in the browser. You know, I can, like, rove through time. Oh, nice, yeah, it’s like, super slick. I got keyboard shortcuts which are really intuitive. You know, they’re listed here. You can, like, learn about keyboard shortcuts, but everything is, like, powered by the Shift key. So I can just, like, hold Shift and like, use my arrows and like, change how much I want to go through time. And yeah, so it’s like pretty slick to interact with. And then what’s also cool is it can work on all your devices. So the app is what’s called a progressive web app, and what that means is you can install it on your you know, Mac, your PC, your iPhone, your Android. The only thing is, instead of installing it from, like, an app store, you install it from the browser. And when you sign up, you get an email that, like, explains how to do that. But you can see here, like, I’m on my Mac, and it’s, you know, got a cool icon. I can open it up, and now I’m kind of like in the full screen experience, and it’s, it’s also cool as a progressive web app, because I can just hit Command N and, like, open more versions of it. So I could sort of like, just have, like, a bunch open if I wanted, and and just be, like, DJing all these different charts.

Adam Elenbaas

Nice, nice. Nice. Yeah, when I use the real time clock every day, this is effectively a very, very flexible and fluid and intuitive real time clock. That’s one of to me. That’s one of the coolest things that when I was playing with it, that I liked about it was that, you know, for people who just want when I’m teaching aspects and when I’m teaching transits, I tell people, you need to manipulate the ephemeris through your software program in a real time clock every day, and you need to, as you were saying, rove through time and space to follow the transits. And what I just really love about this is how easy and fluid it is to do that. Yeah,

Brandon Reid

I appreciate it. You know, on a you can see this dial here. And when I’m on like, a touch device, it’s really sweet to just grab that thing, spin it around. You can keep spinning, and you can go through time again. This is, like, the right-handed mode. There’s a left my daughter’s left handed, so I had to look out for the lefties. Yeah, but, yeah, you can, like, swap it into left-hand mode. You can just kind of wrangle it and get a hold of it and and you can also, like, if you find, like, a certain time, or, for me, I was at my sister’s wedding, and I had this on my phone, and I was like, waiting for right when she was going to say, I do. And I was like, that’s, that’s going to be the marriage time, you know. And I screenshotted my phone, and then later I had to, like, enter the dates and stuff, but like, and, you know, it took me too much time until, like, they asked me something about the chart. So I added this feature where you can just, like, bam. Like, you know, wedding, boom. Like, now. Saved. You know, nice, wow. That’s super cool. Yeah, that’s really handy, especially if you’re out and about and something, something captures your symbolic eye and you want to grab that chart so that you can take a look at it later. That’s a super nice feature, exactly, you know, to me, that’s like, a huge way I interact with astrology is like, what something’s happening. I’m really curious. Like, I can see, you know, the moon doing something right now. Can I confirm it with the chart? Let me check it out, you know that? Or also, just if I’m out and about with a friend and you know, it’s like, yeah, you know what? I’m really curious about your chart. Let me just open it for my phone, and we could check it out. And, you know, we can bring it to the computer if we want a big, a big version of it.

Adam Elenbaas

But sure, is the default setting. I know people are going to ask, this is the default setting? Whole sign houses. It is. Yeah, yeah. That’s really helpful for people who follow my channel, because most, I think probably majority of the audience are whole sign house people, because they they’re into Hellenistic and all of that. But yeah, anyway, I was just curious.

Brandon Reid

Yeah, I practice Hellenistic now. I used to do Placidus. I am still. So this is one thing that you know. So if I go back to the real time transits, so settings, you can, like, change settings on the fly. And I’ll do this sometimes because I practice whole sign houses as well, but sometimes it’s sweet to just jump into Placidus. And you know, then when I’m roving through time, instead of, like, when you row through time with whole sign houses, you know, the ascendant will go into the next house, and everything sort of jumps right. And when I’m, like, trying to talk to my kids about, like, Here, let’s watch the sun go, you know, over, you know, throughout the year, it’s gonna like, you know, row through time. It’s a little easier with the way plastic does houses. So I’ll just switch over, and then when I’m done, and come back and go back to whole sign, save it. It just updates. There’s no reloading and refreshing, you know. And I actually do that with like placements as well. Like a lot of times when I’m looking at transits, I don’t include the ascendant because I’m just sort of, you know, I don’t include it in aspects, because it just kind of distracts me, and it’s maybe irrelevant and, or the same thing with, like, the lot of fortune or something like that, like, not really interested in the aspects to that. So I’ll just turn them off, and then when I want them back on, I can just pop it back on and, you know, check it out. Yeah,

Adam Elenbaas

Yeah. Totally. That. That is awesome. So can you show people how you would cast a birth chart with this?

Brandon Reid

Sure, yeah, I would hit this plus button. You can also just like shift n, and then, you know, some chart. This is another thing too, by the way. So Astro theorists works from anywhere between 13,000 BC all the way to like 16,800 ad, but computer like date inputs, they only work with like four digits. They really don’t work with anything like before 1000 ad, they’re just not designed that way. So there’s a lot of obsession about small details like this. So I could do, you know, like, 12,000 you know, ad or something like that, which also side note like so the chart renders super fast, or about 600 years, 1800 to about 2400 like what you’ll probably use most the time outside of that range, range the ephemeris data, it’s just too much data to send to like your device. So it does calculate on the server. It’s a little slower, because it’s got to get that data, but there’s no, like, refreshing or anything like that.

Adam Elenbaas

So if I want to get the election data for 3000 years from now, I might be, it might, might be a little harder, yeah,

Brandon Reid

It takes a slight second, right? Yeah, yeah. It’s maybe, like, one second. Okay, yeah, yeah. So, you know,

Adam Elenbaas

I go inconvenient.

Brandon Reid

I’m just kidding, right? Yeah. So I can, like, put in stuff. I can enter, you know, my date, and then it uses the Google locations API for latitude and longitude. There’s a whole conversation I could have about getting the right latitude and longitude and like, daylight savings time and space and time is, like, really complex, but I like to be able to just, you know, New York. Sorry, my New York. I. Yeah. And then it’ll calculate the UTC offset and everything like that. You could set a different location for like, the transits, if you want. And then you just save it

Adam Elenbaas

Nice, wow. And then there it is, yeah, and it appears on your charts list. So again, your charts list is saved in the cloud. You’ll, you know, you’ll be able to access it from your phone anywhere you can favorite things. You know, I also like the keyboard shortcut for this. Like, nobody else cares about keyboard shortcuts as much as I do, probably, but like, I can just do like Shift C, and then, you know, go to like Carl young. I can look at Carl Jung’s transits with, like, Shift T. Oh, this is another cool thing.

Adam Elenbaas

Is Oh Shift T, and it’ll pop his transits up,

Brandon Reid

yeah, or shift S. And I could be like, Okay, let’s look at you versus, you know, Keanu Reeves or whatever, and, oh, my God, dude, that’s real. Yeah. These are the ergonomics. And this is a cool one too. So like, if I’m say, I’m looking at, like a client chart, and we’re kind of talking about some date in the past, and so I’m bringing up the transits to kind of get an idea of, like, what was going on in the sky at that time for me. Like, you know, say, I’ve got, you know, Jupiter over here, and I can see that it’s aspecting this natal chart in certain ways. But I also kind of want to know what the condition of Jupiter is on its own. And you can just do that. So I could just click this and just look at the aspects, just for the outside chart. And I can see, like, Okay, let me get a feel for what Jupiter’s up to. I can go back to just the natal chart, okay, let me get a feel for that. And then I can get the mixed aspects. And there’s keyboard shortcuts for that too.

Adam Elenbaas

So where did, where do you find the keyboard shortcuts? Again, just because I know people will want to find those right there. Okay,

Brandon Reid

got it, yep, yeah, and explains it Nice,

Adam Elenbaas

Dude. This is really exciting. I want to make sure that you have time to show us any other features that you think we should see before we go. Anything else that we want to you want to make sure we know,

Brandon Reid

Um, let’s see. I think, I think that about covers it, you know, it works on, oh, themes. Themes are really cool. So this is dark mode. And also, by the way, like I haven’t found another astrology app that has, like, a dark mode I’ve really liked. So I’m very proud of my dark mode. Nice. Oh, okay, got it, yeah, if you want to be blinded real quick, you know, there you go. But, and then also, like, you know, here it is, like, on the iPad. God, I can see it like, moves for you. It’s like, really responsive. And then here it is, like, on a phone, on the phone too, you can see, like, it’s, it’s got really slick, like, menus and stuff like that. And they’ll, like, go away. It’s just, like, good quality stuff, you know.

Adam Elenbaas

Love it. And so when, when you sign up and log in, that allows for everything to be shared across your devices, exactly.

Brandon Reid

Yeah. So it is a subscription based software, it’s going to be continuously updating, like, there’s so much I want to add and, and, and, you know, like the chart itself is actually rendered using a 3d rendering tech. So at some point I want to do some cool stuff with that where, like, render a horizon line and have a sun, like, you know, setting and rising when you move at the chart, especially if you’re learning, you know, oh, yeah, that’s awesome, yeah. So it is cloud based, so you can access it from any browser. You could be at the library. You can just log into your account, bring up your charts, you know. You can sign in on your phone, on your tablet. You can install the app through the browser, like I was explaining. And yeah,

Adam Elenbaas

Amazing. Can we go back to the browser homepage for a second

Brandon Reid

for sure?

Brandon Reid

Also like the back and forward, like being able to hit the back, you know, the browser back button and sort of like go to previous steps is, is just like a nice utility. You kind of had to have to experience it to find the value in it. But it’s sweet to be able to, just like, kind of reverse time a little bit from what you’re exploring.

Adam Elenbaas

Yeah, dude, this is so cool. I’m so happy to be showing my audience this because one of the questions I get all of the time is, you know, what astrology app would you recommend? And people always ask me, like, I’m not kidding. I get this question at least once a. Month is, is there an app that will work and and coordinate every all my charts, like on everything? And I’m always like, I don’t think so. I think you got to kind of start fresh with everyone. So this that’s especially unique from my perspective. Yeah, I think, I think that’s probably one of the things I’ve never seen that before. So, and I might be out there, but I

Brandon Reid

have looked and looked, and I would have loved for somebody else to have already done all this. Now, you guys did it. And so I was like, I’m doing it. And like I said, you know, it’s like, all my skills in one thing. So I’m just like, so proud of it, and I hope that other people out there, you know, give it a shot and enjoy it. And I just can’t wait to keep, you know, adding stuff to it, making it better and better.

Adam Elenbaas

So when someone comes here, how do they sign up? How does that work? Yeah,

Brandon Reid

so I’m already logged in, so I see this button, otherwise you would see a sign up Login button. You can just click Get Started. You’ll create an account, and then you’ll pick a plan. I do have a coupon code for the nightlight folks out there. Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. In fact, I made a big picture for it. I

Adam Elenbaas

put it up right here, just so people see how there’s login or sign up over here. This is my browser. So my browser, which doesn’t is not logged in. I think I do have an account, but sign up has not yet occurred here, so you would just click the sign up and then go from there. By the way, I want to make it clear, Brandon is giving this coupon to everybody, and I am taking absolutely nothing from this. There’s nightlight is not taking any profit from any of this. I just literally, I want to support Brandon because he is an OG nightlight student, and I’m just so happy to see someone who’s come through nightlight doing something so innovative. So that’s purely my motivation for doing this.

Brandon Reid

Exactly. And I’ve reached out and was like, hey, you know, I’m starting this thing. And you’re like, dude, I’m just good. I just want to have you on the on the show. And, dude, thank you so much. I mean, you know, sure, especially because the nightlight audience, you know, like I said, I chose to make whole sign houses the default. And when you first sign up, it sort of like keeps it to the, you know, the core planets and stuff like that. And so it’s just sort of like, that’s the ethos that went into it. So I know, like, the nightlight folks out there probably enjoy it, yeah, man, just thank you so much for give me a chance to show it off. Is there a code you want me to mention to everybody? Yeah, it’s vision quest. Let’s see. I’ve got it right here. So vision quest to hearken to Adam’s visionary roots.

Adam Elenbaas

That’s awesome, dude. Okay, let me just, let’s see if I can. Oh, you’ve got it right there. Okay, perfect. Yeah, there we go. There’s a quote on a banner,

Brandon Reid

yeah, so if you sign up so your first month will just be $1

Adam Elenbaas

Nice. That’s amazing. You can try it out and check out all the features. Yeah, I’m so happy for you. I’m so glad you could come on and share this with us today. And also just, I’ll just say this, and I’m Brandon. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I have known Brandon for a really long time, and I also know Brandon to be as someone who acted as an part of his astrological learning journey. I also know for a fact that if you contact Brandon through the support feature of the site and throw out suggestions for the continued evolution or development of the program. He’ll listen and take them seriously, because he’s a super creative guy who’s always learning and always evolving. So I know that if you’re like, Hey, could you add this asteroid eventually? Or so, I don’t know, whatever you find that you wish the program had, because it’s got everything, but this one little thing, just tell Brandon, because I’m sure that he’ll take that feedback seriously, and that’s important. I’ve heard I’ve actually heard people. I’ve heard other software engineers and designers. I worked for one a while ago at time passages and other astrology program, and I think I love this program so much more for a variety of reasons. No offense to time passages, but the reason that I would say that one of the things that I heard a number of astrology engineers say software engineers say at conferences, and when I work for time passages, they said, If you don’t constantly stay up on what people are using and how they’re using it, because there’s asteroids and there’s new things and whatever, and it’s pretty much impossible to start a program with every feature ever but you grow and you add to it as you figure out what the users wanting. Am I right about that? Brandon?

Brandon Reid

For sure. Yeah, you know, fixed stars and all that stuff. I can’t wait to continue, like, iterating on the product. I think I’ve got, like, good basics in there, like the good fundamentals that most people use on a daily basis. And it’s Western astrology focus. I It doesn’t support Vedic Astrology or anything yet, but so much to to add and, and, and, do you know?

Adam Elenbaas

Yeah, I mean, and that’s the thing, is that, you know, when you start an app like this, one of the reasons that I really liked it, and I recommend everyone check it out, is because there, if you’re, if you’re someone who is doing natal astrology, and you’re tracking the transits, and you’re using, maybe, like a lot of spirit and fortune, you’re using the major planets, the traditional seven, you’re using the outer planets, you’re using whole sign houses, and those are, that’s your bread and butter. This program is so intuitive, right? And so I would for anyone who’s just looking for something that can sync across apps, that’s going to continue to grow and evolve and get better and better, because I know Brandon to be that kind of creator, I would recommend getting in on this and checking it out and starting to work with it, because I think that you’ll really enjoy not only what it is now, but I’m sure where Brandon will continue to Go as a creative.

Brandon Reid

Yeah, thank you so much. Adam. Really appreciate. Yeah,

Adam Elenbaas

Yeah, absolutely. I also just want to plug one more time. The website is astrotheoros.com so you can go there to sign up and check it out. And if you use that code vision quest, you’ll get that first month for $1 I take nothing from this. I’m just happy to promote Brandon. He’s an, like I said, he’s an old school nightlight student and alumni, and someone that you know, when I was first cutting my teeth, you know, as an astrologer and learning how to teach. He was someone that you know was like my, one of my first students ever. So I’m just, I’m just so happy, man, I’m so happy that you’re here and that you’re doing this and that nightlight and the channel could support you. Dude,

Brandon Reid

Super, super thankful, man, not only for this, but just, you know, your guidance and wisdom throughout the years, and just, you know, being able to kind of tune into Adam’s way of seeing the stars on a regular basis. Just so awesome. So just endlessly appreciate it, man, thank you. Yeah,

Adam Elenbaas

Yeah, for sure. Man. Well, that is it for now. Everybody remembers one more time to go check out astrotheoros.com Brandon Reid, the creator, with us today. I’m so happy that he could be here. I hope you all are having a great day, and we will see you again soon. Bye. Everyone. See you.