Astrology & myths · Your daily sky
How your daily sky is worked out
The rules behind Today in your sky, Cosmic Weather and the archive, in full, so you can see how every reading was reached.
Three layers, kept apart
First the astronomy: where the Sun, the Moon and the planets appear from Earth at a given moment. Then the astrological mapping: signs, houses and aspects, each by a stated rule. Then the interpretation: what modern Western astrologers associate with the result. Planetary positions are astronomical calculations. The meanings and advice here come from Western astrological tradition and are not scientifically established.
Where the planets are
The same engine as the birth chart: VSOP87 for the planets, the Moon from Meeus, and a fit to NASA JPL’s DE421 for Pluto, all as apparent geocentric positions in the tropical zodiac, worked out in your browser for any date from 1900 to 2050. A transit is found by stepping each planet through time more finely than any transit could slip between two steps, then narrowing every crossing down to the second.
It is checked against two independent references run separately: the Swiss Ephemeris, which most astrology software is measured against, and NASA JPL’s DE421 through Skyfield. For a test chart over 2026 and 2027, the engine finds the same 584 exact transits as the Swiss Ephemeris, and no others; every one of them, and every one of 839 moments a transit comes into or leaves its orb, agrees to within four arcseconds of the planet’s motion. It also finds the same 35 stations, 140 sign changes and 99 principal Moon phases. Four arcseconds is a fraction of a second for the Moon and up to half an hour for Neptune, which moves that slowly: times are shown to the minute, and for the outer planets the last few minutes are not meaningful.
When a transit counts
A transit is active while the moving planet is within its orb of an exact aspect (conjunction, sextile, square, trine or opposition) to a point in your chart: the ten planets, and your Ascendant and Midheaven when your birth time is known. Astrologers use different orbs; these are this site’s.
| Moving planet | Most aspects | Sextile | Notification |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun | 1.5° | 1.2° | 0.52° |
| Moon | 2° | 1.6° | 0.7° |
| Mercury | 1.5° | 1.2° | 0.52° |
| Venus | 1.5° | 1.2° | 0.52° |
| Mars | 1.5° | 1.2° | 0.52° |
| Jupiter | 1.5° | 1.2° | 0.52° |
| Saturn | 1.5° | 1.2° | 0.52° |
| Uranus | 1° | 0.8° | 0.35° |
| Neptune | 1° | 0.8° | 0.35° |
| Pluto | 1° | 0.8° | 0.35° |
A transit becomes a notification only inside the tighter orb in the last column, and never for the Moon, which makes several aspects a day. Its active time is grouped by length: a day or two; up to three weeks; up to four months; or a long chapter, which is anything longer and any transit that repeats.
Repeat passes
When a planet turns retrograde near an aspect it can make it exact three times. Hits of the same aspect with a station between them are shown as one sequence, with each pass listed. Calling them the introduction, the review and the resolution is astrology’s framing, not a prediction.
Your birth time
With an exact time every point is used, and houses too. With an approximate time, a point that moves less than 0.1° across your range is treated as fixed, one that moves up to 0.5° is marked as time-sensitive and counts for less, and one that moves more is left out, which usually means the Moon and always the Ascendant and Midheaven; houses are used only if the range is fifteen minutes or less. With no time at all, the Moon, the angles and the houses are left out, and every other transit is marked as holding whatever your birth time was.
How a day’s reading is chosen
Every transit, station, sign change, Moon phase and planetary aspect of the day is scored, and the highest score leads. Each part of a score is listed in the reading’s evidence. The weights:
| Significance | moving planet × aspect × your point. Planets: Sun 3, Moon 1.6, Mercury 3, Venus 3, Mars 3.6, Jupiter 3.8, Saturn 4.4, Uranus 4.2, Neptune 4.2, Pluto 4.4. Aspects: conjunction 1, opposition 0.9, square 0.9, trine 0.75, sextile 0.6. Your points: Sun 1.3, Moon 1.3, Ascendant 1.25, Midheaven 1.15, Mercury 1, Venus 1, Mars 1, Jupiter 0.8, Saturn 0.85, Uranus 0.6, Neptune 0.6, Pluto 0.6. |
|---|---|
| Exactness | up to 3, falling to nothing at the edge of the orb |
| Exact today | 3 (the Sun 2, the Moon 0.8) |
| Applying (closing in) | 0.5 |
| Begins today | 1 |
| Your focus topics | 0.4 each, at most two: enough to break a close tie, no more |
| Birth-time uncertainty | −2 |
| Led a recent day | −4 if it led on any of the 3 days before and nothing new happens to it today |
| The sky for everyone | a Moon phase 5.5 (quarters 4); stations 4 to 5; sign changes 3 to 6; the Moon’s sign 1.5 |
The “led a recent day” rule is why a Saturn transit that lasts months leads on the day it begins and on its exact days, not every day. Your notes, your mood tags and how you use the site are never inputs. The same chart, date and settings always give the same reading.
The words
Every reading is put together from passages written for this site: what the moving planet brings, the part of your chart it touches, the aspect, and advice. The calculation supplies the names and the times; the words never invent a transit. The three voices change how a reading is phrased, never its planets, timing or advice. No language model writes or chooses anything. The writing avoids predictions, health, money and relationship verdicts, and anything meant to worry you.
What is kept, and where
Only in your browser: your settings, the readings you chose to keep (exactly as shown, never replaced by a later version) and your notes. A reading for a past date that you did not keep is worked out afresh and says so. The privacy page lists every key.
Notifications
This website sends none and never asks your browser for permission. The notification settings are kept for an app that could follow them; the archive shows what they would send.
What it does not do
- It does not use the lunar nodes, Chiron or asteroids as transiting planets or chart points, or returns, progressions, solar arcs or sidereal zodiacs.
- It covers 1900 to 2050 only.
- It does not predict events or tell you what to do about your health, money, safety or relationships.
- It is not evidence that the planets affect anyone. That question is answered on Astrology & myths.