Aspect patterns
Aspects join planets two at a time. Sometimes three or four of them join up into a larger figure: a triangle, a cross, a finger pointing at one planet. This page finds those figures and draws them.
What was found
The figures
A grand trine is three planets a third of the circle apart, usually all in one element. A T-square is two planets opposite each other with a third square to both, at the apex; a grand cross completes it with a fourth opposite the apex. A yod is two planets sixty degrees apart that are both a hundred and fifty degrees from a third. A kite is a grand trine with a fourth planet opposite one corner, and a mystic rectangle is two oppositions joined by trines and sextiles. A stellium is simply three or more planets in one sign.
How they are found
Every pair of the ten bodies is measured, and a pair counts as an aspect within the same orbs as the charts: 8° for conjunctions and oppositions, 7° for trines and squares and 5° for sextiles (10°, 9° and 6° when the Sun or the Moon is one of the pair), and 3° for the hundred and fifty degrees of a yod, 4° with the Sun or the Moon. A figure is only listed when every one of its links is within orb. A T-square that is part of a grand cross is not listed a second time on its own.
What they claim
Astrology reads a figure as a theme that runs through the planets in it: ease for a grand trine, strain for a T-square, a repeated adjustment for a yod. That is the tradition’s vocabulary, set out here. Having one says nothing certain about anybody, and a chart with none is common.
Step by step
The ten bodies are the Sun, the Moon and the planets from Mercury to Pluto, which gives forty-five pairs. Each pair is measured along the zodiac and named a conjunction, sextile, square, trine or opposition if it is within orb, or a quincunx if it is within orb of a hundred and fifty degrees. The page then searches those links for figures: every three planets for a grand trine; every two oppositions for a grand cross or a mystic rectangle; every opposition with a planet square to both ends for a T-square; every sextile with a planet quincunx to both ends for a yod; and every grand trine with a fourth planet opposite one corner and sextile to the other two for a kite. A stellium is counted by sign rather than by orb.
Reading the list, with an example
Each figure in the list names its planets, the apex where it has one, and the element or mode when all its corners share one. Suppose the Sun is at 10° Aries, Jupiter at 14° Leo and the Moon at 6° Sagittarius. Sun to Jupiter is 124°, four degrees from a trine, and Sun to Moon is also 124°. Jupiter to Moon is 112°, eight degrees off, which is inside the 9° allowed when the Moon is in the pair. All three links hold, so the list shows a grand trine of the Sun, Jupiter and the Moon, in fire. Move Jupiter to 18° Leo and the link from Jupiter to the Moon is twelve degrees off: two trines remain, and no grand trine is listed. Pick a figure in the list and the wheel dims the others.
Common confusions
A stellium here is three or more bodies in one sign, so planets at 29° Taurus and 1° Gemini are not counted together however close they are. A grand trine usually falls in one element, but with a corner near the edge of a sign the three can straddle two, and the list then names no element. In today’s sky a figure that includes the Moon comes and goes within a day or two, because the Moon moves about thirteen degrees a day. The birth figures do not use the angles, so they need no birth time; without one, though, the Moon is placed at midday and can be six or seven degrees out, enough to add or remove a figure it belongs to.
The five aspects the figures are built from are explained on The aspects, and the way the ten bodies spread round the circle as a whole on Chart shape. Midpoints join planets up another way, by the halfway points between them. Your full birth chart is on the front page.
Questions people ask
What is a grand trine in astrology?
Three planets about 120 degrees apart, making a triangle round the chart, usually all in signs of one element. Astrology reads it as ease and a steady flow between the parts of life the three planets stand for. On this page each of the three links must be within the trine orb, 7°, or 9° when the Sun or the Moon is one of them, before the figure is listed.
What is a T-square?
Two planets in opposition with a third square to both, halfway round between them, called the apex. The three often share a mode: cardinal, fixed or mutable. The tradition reads it as strain that looks for an outlet through the apex planet. A fourth planet opposite the apex makes a grand cross, and this page then lists the grand cross rather than the T-squares inside it.
What is a yod?
Two planets sextile each other, 60 degrees apart, that are both quincunx a third planet, 150 degrees away, which makes a long narrow triangle pointing at the apex. It is sometimes nicknamed the finger of God. The tradition reads it as an adjustment the chart keeps having to make. Quincunx orbs are narrow, so this page allows 3°, or 4° with the Sun or the Moon.
How many planets make a stellium?
Most astrologers set the bar at three planets, and some at four. This page counts three or more of the ten bodies in the same sign and names the sign. It does not count a close cluster that runs across a sign boundary, so planets at the last degree of one sign and the first of the next are counted in different signs.