John Burrows (Mailbox, January 2) is justified in his scepticism about the ubiquitous and fairly useless astrological sun-sign forecasts.

These, as far as I am aware, are based on other current factors relating to the sun, and are worked up into plausible predictions based on the astrological characteristics of the other planets etc involved.

Many people's concept of astrology may be confined to these sun-sign forecasts.

This does a disservice to the subject as a whole, which embraces the entire solar system.

Officers of the then flourishing local Astrological Society, have, in the recent past, sometimes been asked for astrological readings.

Supplied with a person's time, date and place of birth, full charts can now be produced by computer software in a matter of minutes.

The time of births is a major factor, in order to determine the important rising sign.

Astrology is a very complex study, which can take a lifetime of learning, and obviously it is impossible to adequately do justice to the subject in the space of one short letter.

Much about a person's character and lifetime potential can be deduced from the birth chart.

From time to time, committees have been set up with a view to debunking astrology, and have often concluded that the topic is a valid study, but as with all such things, these studies are only as good as the expertise (or otherwise) of the people involved.

Astrology is quite a different study from astronomy, although at least as ancient, and on the face of it, no rational scientific link exists, but there is an undeniable correlation between them.

Mr K Dickens, Leicester.