2
The Sun has to be above the ascendant-descendant axis for the chart to be considered diurnal and below if for the chart to be considered nocturnal. If the Sun is just one minute below the ascendant I would define it as nocturnal, but if it is exactly on the ascendant I would define it as diurnal because of the strength the Sun gets in that position.

Sect

3
I'd like to make a conjecture about this that is by no means certain. Because Schmidt has said that sect shows "party affiliation", the period of twilight indicates the transfer of power to the other sect. Each of the 2 sects wants to stay in power as long as possible. While Nous (eidos) would do as Deb has suggested, the material universe allows for "hule" which in classical philosophy is of a dyadic nature, and contrary to well orderedness. It may be possible that the Moon relinquishes the nocturnal throne, if the trigon lords of the Moon are weak, and alternatively, the Moon may usurp the power of the setting Sun if it's trigon lords are weak. Since the trigons indicate "support", if the Sun's trigon lords are weak, it may be as if the Sun sinks prematurely below the horizon due to lack of support and vice versa.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

4
Hello Curtis,

At a conjectural level, who is to say? But according to the applied technique of defining sect there doesn?t seem to be an acknowledgement of twilight. In the ancient period, precise tables of sunrise and sunset were priority information - timekeeping and religious ceremonies (Matins / Vespers) depended on them. In the planetary hours, the last second of the last hour of the nocturnal period leads to the first second of the first hour of the new diurnal period as defined by the tabulated moment of sunrise. I doubt that such information would have been subject to analysis on a daily basis, but that the emphasis was on keeping accordance with the astronomical and mathematical principles that defined sunrise and sunset.

Deb

5
We haven't seen any usage of twilight in print either, but we should keep in mind a couple of things. Most of the material from the period has been lost, much in the same way that medieval astrologers lost the concept of sect by reconstituting it into something else (Bonatti) and then eventually dropping it during the renaissance.

Robert Schmidt is at the stage where having pretty much figured out the philosophical basis of the "System of Hermes Trismegistus" is prepared to state the philosophical principles upon which certain techniques were used (which weren't stated either - but as will be seen are unmistakable). Schmidt says that hellenistic astrologers reconceptualized the earlier material that was there from the Egyptians, to mock the Athenian school which did not acknowledge a system of knowledge based upon the contingent (as opposed to Nous) and tagged each of the 7 major philosophical schools with different "responsibilities" within the system (which BTW tantalizingly suggests the descriptions of the 7 visible planets - Stoic = Saturn, Venus = Epicurean, etc).

What is preposterous and mind blowing is that a system that was so obviously contrived could work this well. Schmidt is on record as stating that: "This works better than astrology has any right to work".

I know that we haven't had the opportunity to show you the examples that we have worked with yet, but Schmidt will soon be publishing what he's kept hidden for the past several years. Part of the problem is that in order to see it clearly, you really need to have the system down, so you will have to come to think of many astrological concepts in a new way.

For example, with regard to the time lords, one tends to slip into the trap of thinking of an event in "scientific" terms, as defined at a specific point in time; but the time lords are not framed in that way. Events are seen as "ongoing", such as "a man runs".

We have found that with those who are famous or well known, the zodiacal aphesis from the lot of spirit, when it hands over the times to the 10th sign from the lot of fortune, tends to show when they first make a major breakthrough and when they become well known. Valens stated this in the Anthology...

Schmidt has said that hellenistic astrology is a rational construct (as opposed to being built up by observation over many centuries). So if they could redefine astrological concepts, why not us?
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

6
I should clarify that I wouldn't advocate looking at twilight in cases where the Sun is completely above or below the horizon. I'd only be interested in defining more clearly what to do in borderline cases such as: what does one do if the Sun is half set where only half of the Sun's disk is visible? There are also technical and philosophical issues such as atmospheric refraction and topocentric vs geocentric coordinates to consider. Alot of astrologers use geocentric coordinates, which suggests that the actual location of the birth is of less importance, hence observational issues such as refraction and topocentric coordinates would not be as important.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

7
Curits
So when does the disk of the Sun become visible over the Ascendant? What sort of time frame do you give for the period when the Sun is half set/half arisen?

8
It varies depending upon latitude, but for temperate - tropical climata, one degree passes over the MC every 4 minutes, and since the Sun is half that we are talking about 2 minutes. Get up into extrerme latitudes, say northern England and it might be about 3 minutes. Once you get into the arctics, you can have a situation where it takes a whole day to rise or set (once every 6 months).

My Timaeus application calculates the times of sunrise and sunset for the planetary hours (by sect), but I haven't figured in twilight issues as I discussed on this page.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC