How to calculate astrological events — aspects, transits and retrogrades

When working with astrological events like aspects, transits and planetary retrogrades, an astrologer often needs to know when does the aspect begins, becomes exact and eventually diminishes.

Time Nomad offers precise calculations of timing for the most important astrological and astronomical events. The calculations can be applied to birth chart, chart of transits and, generally speaking, chart for any date and time for any given geographical location.

Calculations of significant astrological events

Chart Event Explorer allows to instantly reveal and explore nearly any event that can be found on regular and transiting astrological charts:

• Personal Lunar or Solar returns
• Personal transits
• Equinoxes and solstices
• Moon phases and Void of Course
• Retrogrades
• Planetary aspects
• Aspects to fixed stars

Calculations can answer questions like:

“What will my transits for the next birthday look like?”
“When does this aspect start, become exact or finish?”
“When does this transit start, become exact or finish?”
“When is the next retrograde? Which planet?”

A chart is only a snapshot of a single moment. But we want to know more than that:

• What personal transits will be at that time.
• What kind of chart will this event produce.
• Start, exact and end dates of the event.

In other words, we want to see our chart during some important event and we want to know the time frame of that event and how exactly other planets changed during that time period.

Precise astrological chart calculations

Chart Event Explorer builds precise astrological chart for the specific moments of interest. But the functionality goes much further!

The tool also calculates the chart of your transits thus enabling you to see what transits take place at that time.

Chart Event Explorer is able to perform precise calculations in real-time delivering nearly instant answers to your astrological questions.

Performing Chart Event Explorer calculations

Chart Event Explorer calculator can be activated if you force-tap or long-tap or simply tap on pretty much any astrological or astronomical event in Time Nomad.

For example, the event can be phase of the Moon or some specific transit or some aspect, as Saturn Pluto conjunction shown in the example below. Force-tap or long-tap or simply tap on the event and the Chart Event Explorer will immediately show up.

There is a lot of information and interactive chart functionality packed in the tool. Let’s starting from the top of the screen.

The top dropdown shows the list of timeline of the event, whether possible including beginning and end of the event, its exact moment and possible stationary states of involved planets.

Bottom controls allow to switch between a regular chart and a chart of transits. Use “Show” to configure each chart’s view. Use the slider (either drag or tap) to select aspects to be shown.

The chart highlights planets involved in the event using yellow and purple colour coding where purple highlights transited planet.

A useful feature — tap on blue time distance label to instantly move Time Nomad to that moment in time so that you can explore that event in more details.

At the bottom of the chart you can find the Zodiac position of highlighted planets (on the left) as well as their houses (on the right).

Chart Event Explorer is a highly interactive tool that enables in-depth exploration of a wide variety of astrological events, right from the convenience of your pocket.

Case study: Saturn – Pluto conjunction of 2020

How to calculate timing of a long-term aspects

The upcoming conjunction of Saturn and Pluto that will happen in January 2020 provides an excellent example. In its totality, the Saturn – Pluto conjunction will last for a period of slightly over 24 months. How can we find the exact dates of this astrological event?

Locate an approximate date when Saturn and Pluto planets form a conjunction aspect. The aspect doesn’t need to be exact, any orb of that aspect will suffice. Use the “Chart for Now” screen to scroll through time until the planets form an aspect of interest.

Then go to the “Aspects List” screen and tap on the row with that aspect and then switch to “Chart” view (the button at the bottom left). In fact, you can simply force-tap or long-tap to instantly jump to that view.

A Chart Event Explorer popup will appear and required calculations will be automatically performed to find out the exact dates of the aspect unfoldment.

Tap on the top dropdown to reveal the list of those events. The list will also include any moments in time when either planet is stationary direct or stationary retrograde.

Moving through the list you can see how the chart will look like for each of those moments.

There’s more, with a single tap you can switch between the chart of moment and the chart of your personal transits. allowing you to see what this moment in time will mean for you.

If further exploration of a specific moment is required, tap on the blue date offset indicator and Time Nomad will jump to that date so you can analyse that moment in time with the full set of Time Nomad tools.