Lunaire begins with astronomy: a snapshot of a sky that’s always in motion, taken at one measured instant. It calculates where ten celestial bodies appear along the ecliptic (as seen from Earth), how those positions are changing, and the Moon’s phase and illumination. These measured facts work like a painter’s sketch: the observed points, angles, and proportions that give the picture its underlying structure.
Astrological convention supplies the next layer. It maps those measured longitudes onto the twelve equal signs of the tropical zodiac and gives planets, signs, phases, and aspects their traditional symbolic roles. In the painting, this is the inherited visual language—the shared palette and forms that make the marks legible as astrology.
Then come choices that vary among astrologers, like an individual artist’s style. Lunaire uses the tropical rather than sidereal zodiac, sets deliberately tight orbs for its daily sky reading, defines what counts as a stellium on the page, and decides which verified conditions deserve space in a short interpretation. These are choices of composition: where Lunaire draws a line, what it brings into the foreground, what it leaves in the background, and what color it ascribes. They are stated methodological and editorial thresholds within astrology (and with wiggle room therein), not new astronomical facts or universal rules of the tradition.
What Lunaire measures
Lunaire follows the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. What the planets want to tell us introduces this cast and the human concern each one brings into a chart. Its astronomy engine calculates each body’s apparent, Earth-centered position along the ecliptic and expresses that longitude through the tropical zodiac: a 360-degree circle divided into twelve equal signs of 30 degrees each. “Earth-centered” names the viewpoint. It does not claim that Earth sits at the physical center of the solar system (it doesn’t). “Tropical” means the zodiac is anchored to the seasonal equinox rather than matched to the uneven astronomical constellations.
Sun through Neptune come from an analytic astronomical model while Pluto uses a separate orbital approximation—a distinction that matters from ephemeris to prose. Lunaire therefore treats his exact degree with more care near a sign boundary and leaves him out of exact future clock-time claims. The calculation also keeps the Moon’s sign, phase, and illumination separate.
One instant, with a local frame
The wheel, positions, Moon details, event cards, and reading all begin from the same captured instant. A station, ingress, or exact Full Moon occurs at one absolute moment, shared by every viewer and recorded in UTC.
The reader’s IANA time zone does not move that event. It translates the instant onto a local clock and supplies the boundaries of the local calendar day the page calls “today.” The completed-event search checks from local midnight to the captured moment. A second search looks strictly after that moment and before the next local midnight.
At most one eligible future station, ingress, or exact Full Moon may enter the prose in future tense. It does not enter a completed-event card before it happens. Moon ingresses stay out of this future prose because they occur too often to carry the day.
Motion, turns, and crossings
Lunaire checks each tracked body’s apparent movement through zodiac longitude.
- Direct: Longitude is currently increasing.
- Retrograde: Longitude is currently decreasing from Earth’s viewpoint. The planet has not reversed its physical orbit.
- Station retrograde: A solved turn from direct to retrograde has occurred since local midnight.
- Station direct: A solved turn from retrograde to direct has occurred since local midnight.
- Ingress: A body has crossed a 30-degree sign boundary since local midnight. A retrograde planet can cross backward.
- All direct: Mercury through Pluto are all moving direct.
The Sun and Moon are always presented as direct in this astrology-facing model. Today’s Sky does not calculate retrograde shadow periods.
Current aspects are snapshots. A pair can be within orb without Lunaire claiming when the aspect perfects, whether it is applying or separating, or whether exactness falls on this local date.
Three ways the sky can gather
These forms of togetherness stay deliberately separate:
- Same-sign group: Two or more tracked bodies occupy the same 30-degree sign. The largest group can shape the opening, but sharing a sign is not itself an aspect.
- Stellium: On Today’s Sky, three or more tracked bodies gather in one sign. The Moon can count.
- Conjunction: Two bodies are close in zodiac longitude, within three degrees of the same angle. They may even straddle a sign boundary.
Stellium definitions vary. Some astrologers require four bodies, a tighter degree range, or particular planets. Lunaire’s definition belongs to this page and the question it asks; it is not a universal rule.
The five major aspects and their orbs
An aspect is an angle between two bodies. Orb is the distance from that exact angle. Today’s Sky uses five major aspects and deliberately tight daily orbs:
- Conjunction · 0°: within 3°.
- Sextile · 60°: within 1.5°.
- Square · 90°: within 2°.
- Trine · 120°: within 2.5°.
- Opposition · 180°: within 3°.
For daily sextile, square, trine, and opposition cards, Lunaire compares Mercury through Pluto and requires at least one faster planet: Mercury, Venus, or Mars. The Sun and Moon do not enter this non-conjunction card set. Two slow outer planets can hold an aspect for weeks or months; that geometry is real, but it is not always news.
Conjunctions are checked across all ten tracked bodies; their traditional meanings are a separate interpretive layer.
Why another chart may draw a wider circle
There is no physical wall at the edge of an orb. A natal chart, for instance, describes a lifelong structure and may allow roughly six to ten degrees around a major aspect. Today’s Sky asks what is close enough to exact to deserve space in one daily reading, so its orbs stay between 1.5 and 3 degrees. A wider orb does not change the planetary positions; it changes the astrological threshold for what counts as active.
Astrology does not have one ruler handed down with the planets. Another astrologer may use wider orbs for the Sun and Moon, include minor aspects, distinguish applying from separating, require more bodies to make a stellium, or work with the sidereal rather than tropical zodiac.
These choices answer different questions. Lunaire’s daily rules favor exactness, fast-moving relevance, and a small number of events a person can actually read. A pair at 3.01 degrees has not undergone a physical transformation from a pair at 2.99. The line is an interpretive and editorial threshold, stated plainly so it does not masquerade as a law of astronomy.
One quiet exception proves the point. Lunaire uses a wider six-degree search when Mercury’s closest major aspect helps determine Mercury’s pronoun in the prose. That test answers a character question, not whether the aspect deserves a headline.
What earns space
After the fixed Sun and Moon cards, Lunaire gives priority to completed stations, completed ingresses, stelliums, ongoing retrogrades, and current aspects. If none takes the available space, an all-direct card can capture the quiet. A lower-ranked condition may be real and still not appear; “not shown” does not mean “not happening.”
The reading draws from the same calculations. The largest same-sign group or a diffuse sky shapes the opening. Current retrogrades get their say, and one eligible event that has already occurred today may get a scene. If the future search finds a material station, ingress, or exact Full Moon before the next local midnight, one may enter in future tense giving you a peek past the horizon. The Moon’s sign and phase close it out. The wording stays date-seeded when the facts stay still, but a real-time crossing can change the page after it happens.
What Lunaire leaves out
Today’s Sky does not currently calculate houses, the Ascendant, a natal chart, local visibility, eclipses, lunar nodes, asteroids, fixed stars, planetary dignity, combustion or cazimi, void-of-course Moon, declination, minor aspects, applying or separating state, exact aspect-perfection times, or retrograde shadow periods.
Those are different calculations, not flavor text waiting to be switched on. Lunaire measures first, interprets second, and keeps the seam visible.
A work in progress
These are Lunaire’s current working choices, not a claim that there is only one correct way to read the sky, or even that ours is the best. We’ll keep testing the calculations, thresholds, and explanations, and refine them if a clearer or more useful approach earns its place.
We welcome the comparison: what works in this approach, what is missing, where would you draw the lines differently, and why? The form below is there for it.
Check back for updates to Lunaire’s methods. When the method changes, this page will say so.