Planets, Bodies and Points Astrology

Planets, Bodies, and Points

Different orbs are used depending upon what planets or bodies are involved. The Sun and Moon (The Lights) are the two most important bodies and wider orbs are generally used when working with them. Their influence is greater, and we make allowances for that, by giving them a wider orb. For example, with the Sun, we might use an orb as wide as 10 degrees, while using a 9-degree orb for the Moon, and 7 or 8 degrees for the other planets. This would be when looking at a natal chart.

If we were looking at transits (what is happening in the sky right now), using too wide of an orb would give us so too many transits, then the list of them could be longer than our attention span. What we want are manageable lists of things. Having a list of 200 aspects may be very nice, but how often are you going to sit down and count through 200 aspects, when all you want is a quick picture of what is happening today?

So, in actual practice, we tend to limit our orbs and the list of aspects we use to something manageable, to what we will actually use, what we find helpful in day-to-day work. As I like to tell myself, I want astrological techniques that work for me, and not vice versa. There are thousands of possible techniques you can experiment with, but which ones give you back enough return for your investment in time to make them valuable to you? Each of us will have to answer that question for ouselves.