Horary questions regarding ascendant and cazimi

1
Dear all,
I had few questions and I would be grateful if the learned ones could have a look and shed some light.

1. Normally it is suggested not to judge a chart when an ascendant is late or too early. Would the rule apply to first or last 5 degree or is it greater or smaller?

2. Normally when sun overlaps another planet (within 15 mins), the occurance is called cazimi and the effect is that both sun and the overlapped planet become strengthened. Does this apply to the moon as well? Meaning, if moon and mercury were within 0-15 mins of each other, would the term 'cazimi' be used or is there any other term for that? Secondly, is this aspect as forceful as the 'cazimi' it self?

Thanks in advance and kind regards,
Ash

2
The rule says about the first and last 3 (not 5) degrees of the Ascending sign.
This a consideration before judgement made up in order to restrict the silly and malevolent querents from asking a question that is not proper for judgment.
But if the early Ascendant degree fits the question then you may judge the chart. For instance, I've been asked two days ago to participate to a personal project of someone, but that person didn't want to tell me more about the project. I then cast a horary chart in order to find out about that and saw an early degree Ascendant, which fit very well my situation - not knowing very much about the project I was to be involved. I went on to judge the chart and got the good answer.

As for the second question of yours, the cazimi, it refers to a planet located within 17 minutes of arc from the exact conjunction with the Sun both in longitude and in latutude. In other words, there must be a conjunction within 17minutes but also a parallel of declination within 17 minutes between that planet and the Sun. This is something most people overlook, but it is logical since the planet must be literally covered by the Sun's disc in order to be considered cazimi, therefore strenghtened. The Sun is not influenced by this condition in any way.

The common cazimi interpretation I've seen is that the planet must be conjunct the Sun within 17minutes, regardless of the declination. Only Bonatti in Liber Astronomiae says the other way, which I find logical. That explains why the conjunction by longitude without parallel of declination when considered as cazimi gives contradictory results, I've seen astrologers saying that cazimi is not really useful in electional astrology for instance. And they are right, they've noticed from their practice that it didn't work out as expected, but this can be explained as it wasn't actually a cazimi, but only a combustion.

The same for the Moon, the common take on the Sun-Moon conjunction is that it is not a favourable moment to start things, the applying conjunction is really bad, the only moment that might hold some positive influence (but not much) is when the Moon is separating from the Sun, while it is still cazimi. In this case the next planet it is applying to will tell whether this moment is fortunate or not.

Technically the only real 'Moon cazimi' situation occurs when there is a Sun Eclipse. As during an eclipse the Moon's nodes are conjunct with the Sun and the Moon too, the North Node conjunct the eclipse will be more benefic.

The third question was referred to the Moon and Mercury. They cannot be considered as cazimi because this terms means "in the heart of the Sun". The Sun is the giver of life, light and energy, and that is why it strenghtens the planets which tightly conjunct it. Its diameter is of 34 degrees, therefore the radius is of 17 degrees. This explains why we use in the definition of cazimi this distance of 17 minutes.

The other planets also have an apparent diameter, just as the Sun. It depends on the planet (its dimensions and its distance from the Earth), but the average diameter is of about 6 minutes. That's why an aspect (other than with the Sun) is considered as 'separating' only after it is past 6 minutes from the exact aspect. This is a rough approximation, though, and to be picky we may say that it really depends on the planets involved, although in practice we overlook this.