Aspects & orbs

By default every chart computes the five major aspects with per-aspect orbs; minor aspects are opt-in per aspect via minorAspects; orb behavior is overridden with aspectOrbs.

Choosing your settings

• Defaults are right for most charts: majors only, orbs 8/8/7/7/5.
• Turn on specific minors with minorAspects booleans — e.g. { "minorAspects": { "quincunx": true, "septile": true } }.
• { "aspectOrbs": { "fixed": 3 } } for a uniform tight orb; { "multiplier": 0.5 } to halve every default orb; "hide" to skip aspect computation entirely.
• Classical/traditional practice: { "aspectOrbs": { "moiety": "porphyry" } } on astro_aspects within-chart (per-planet moieties, table below).
• Research setups: { "aspectOrbs": { "perPair": { "Moon-Sun": 10 } } } on within-chart for exact per-pair control.

Aspect table

With minorAspects omitted, only the five majors are computed. Detection uses the shortest angular distance between the two bodies, checked against the active aspects in table order.

aspectOrbs — the orb override

aspectOrbs is a union:

• "default" (or omit) — the per-aspect defaults above.
• "hide" — compute no aspects.
• { "fixed": n } — one orb for every active aspect; n from 0.5 to 15.
• { "multiplier": n } — every default orb scaled by n; 0.1 to 2.0.

On astro_aspects within-chart ONLY, two more modes:

• { "moiety": "porphyry" } — the orb for each pair is the mean of the two bodies' classical orbs ("moieties"): Sun 15°, Moon 12°, Saturn 9°, Jupiter 9°, Mars 8°, Venus 7°, Mercury 7°, anything else 8°. Example: a Moon–Mercury aspect allows (12 + 7) / 2 = 9.5°.
• { "perPair": { ... } } — explicit per-pair maximum orbs. Keys are the two body ids sorted alphabetically and joined with a hyphen ("Moon-Sun", "Jupiter-Saturn"); values 0.1 to 15. Pairs not listed fall back to the per-aspect defaults.

Reading the output

Each aspect record has body1, body2, aspect, angle, orb, isApplying. orb is signed — separation minus exact angle, rounded to 2 decimals: negative means the aspect is still approaching exactness, positive means past it. isApplying projects both bodies forward along their current speeds (retrograde-aware) and reports whether the distance to exact is closing.

astro_aspects within-chart output for the quickstart subject (1990-01-01 12:00, London, defaults) — 13 major aspects come back in total; two of them:

[
  {
    "body1": "Sun",
    "body2": "Jupiter",
    "aspect": "Opposition",
    "angle": 180,
    "orb": -5.67,
    "isApplying": false
  },
  {
    "body1": "Sun",
    "body2": "Saturn",
    "aspect": "Conjunction",
    "angle": 0,
    "orb": 4.84,
    "isApplying": true
  }
]

Cross-chart aspects default to a flat 3° orb

between-charts comparisons and transit scans default to { "fixed": 3 } instead of the natal defaults — cross-aspect lists stay readable instead of tripling in size. Override with aspectOrbs if you want wider scans. In transit comparisons only the moving chart's motion counts toward applying/separating; comparing two birth charts is a static comparison. The moiety/perPair modes are not available on between-charts — use fixed/multiplier there.

Declination parallels

Parallel and contra-parallel contacts are computed from declinations as a separate list, gated by parallelOrb (0 to 3; default 1.2°).

Tools that accept aspectOrbs

astro_aspects, astro_chart, astro_chart_derived, astro_chart_pattern, astro_progressions, astro_returns.

Related

• Birth data
• House systems
• Choosing a tool
• Reference