Hm, I was just brushing up on the astral parts and come to think about reading astral signatures: I assume they can't be explained or written down in a meaningful fashion, and not being able to exchange important leads is a bad thing for the corp mages.

Would it be possible for a mage to astrally percieve but never leave the body, and record this experience as simsense? Could another mage skilled in Assensing then access this recording and learn anything from it?
Any other viable methods?

Edit: Hm, last part before Astral Signature chapter: "Astral perception is a psychic sense not linked to physical sight."
Don't seem like simsense will work. But isn't keeping track of astral signatures at breaches of security somewhat meaningless: What are the chances of the same person running into the same signature again?

SOTA 64 in SR3 introduced the Kirulean portable camera, which does record auras but takes a long time to do so.

I've always interpreted astral signatures to be simply a constellation of aspects of astral space that are common among the magical activities used by a single caster. Perhaps certain "colors" or a certain "mood" (or lack thereof) or a visual pattern (stellate, spiral, fractal, circular, whatever). I think a trained Assenser would be able to write down these key patterns, simply describing it in words. To directly record an astral signature, you can possibly capture it on astral film and camera (the daguerrotype/Kirlian photography techniques from SOTA:2064). Since there is no way to do this electronically, you'd have to make the image, then scan it into a computer to add it to a profile. It would be just like modern crime scene investigation... pictures can tell a lot, but you'd have to see the scene first-hand to take it all in. Or the difference between seeing the X-Rays/CTs and seeing a patient. Or a picture of a physical work of art versus being in the same room to observe it.

Ok, thanks for the input: I haven' tread any of the SOTA books .