Foreground Orbs

[sotonye]

I think the rule "closer is stronger" applies to angularity as much as to planetary aspects, but as we move from partility, is the dropoff in strength the same? How much stronger is a conjunction to an angle at 0° than at 3° or beyond?

[SteveS]

Sotonye wrote/asked:

I think the rule "closer is stronger" applies to angularity as much as to planetary aspects, but as we move from partility, is the drop-off in strength the same? How much stronger is a conjunction to an angle at 0° than at 3° or beyond?

IMO, Jim addressed this issue in a splendid fashion in his book ‘Interpreting Solar Returns’ under ‘Aspect Orbs.’ I can’t remember if those words have been posted on the forum. In the type astrology I practice which is more of ‘event’ astrology for other people and mundane astrology, fwiw, my top of the list axiom I use in the type astrology I practice is from Jim’s book ‘Interpreting Solar Returns’ where he says:

Partile aspects (1 degree orb or less) reign supreme. Aspects at this high (partile) level of potency are apt to manifest no matter what. It is when angularity and aspect partility coincide that outstanding incidents are most likely to come about.

I use Jim’s above words in all charts I analyze, as an axiom, for I am mainly interested in the ‘outstanding incidents,’ in people’s lives and 'outstanding incidents' in the world of mundane astrology. As far as the orb I use for conjunct aspects to angles, I definitely use “closer is stronger” and prefer to see planets 3-5 degree or less to angles but always check the mundoscope to see the true orb distance to an angle. The reason Fagan told us Parans are the most powerful aspect in Sidereal Astrology is the fact planets are 1 degree or less in mundo conjunct an angle. When we see planets partile cnj an angle in mundo, we are definitely looking at serious manifestations of the planet(s) symbolism.

[Jim Eshelman]

I think the rule "closer is stronger" applies to angularity as much as to planetary aspects, but as we move from partility, is the dropoff in strength the same? How much stronger is a conjunction to an angle at 0° than at 3° or beyond?

I am sure "closer is stronger" applies in the same way to angularity as to aspects, though

Let me preface this by saying that saying that we have learned more about technical expressions of aspects and angularity from Sidereal mundane astrology than from any other subfield. Solar and lunar returns, in most respects, are the same specie of chart as solar and lunar ingresses, so much of the knowledge is transferable from one to the other. The biggest advantage solar and lunar ingresses give us in research is that (unlike birth charts) the time of ingresses is known to the second of arc and with no doubt.

My birth certificate time of 4:13 AM has proven itself many times to be extremely close but, even if I accept (as I do) that 4:13 is accurate to the minute, where in the 4:12:30 to 4:13:30 range is it? On this, there is room for doubt and, in looking at small gradients of angularity differences, that 60-second range makes a difference sometimes. In contrast, we know that the Caplunar four days and a few hours before my birth occurred October 5 at 11:44:32 PM CST. This kind of "birth time precision" is enormously valuable!


With that preamble out of the way, the rule of "partile aspects in partile angularity" still seems to hold up. Thee is something magical about that partile orb to the primary angles (horizon and meridian). When the intensity of the aspect (narrow aspect orb) converges with maximum expressiveness of the planet energies (narrow orb on angularity), you get maximum likelihood of overt outward expression of dramatic effects.

In all of astrology, but especially in mundane work, I've watched orbs so closely that i have a feeling (integrated into the cells of my body) of their relative ranking, though that's not always easy to articulate without some arbitrary "cut-off point" language. Fortunately, defining useful "cut-off point" language (as if we were used hard-edged orbs) turns out to be "good enough" in practice as long as we're a little flexible about it. By that I mean that if, for example, we draw a sharp line" at 3°, but see one planet in the mix 3°05' from the angle, we usually want to include it anyway, understanding that the entire orbs issue is a gradual drop-off.

However, at some points in the "angularity curve," the slope of the curve shifts and we suddenly get steeper drop-offs. I've described exact behavior of the curves in other threads, and Mike has rendered this into a single mathematical formula that produces a score for each planet's angularity, but you never need this in practice. (It's good to have in theory, and has many use in large-scale research, but not so much in astrological practice.)

It is most useful, therefore, to think of these orb gradients in a couple of different ways. In practice, it is usually most fruitful to list angular planets ranked by orb (closest to farthest) and to look for an obvious "gap" in the orbs where one set of planets is obviously less angular than another set of planets. For example, in Sotonye's natal (ignoring, for the moment, complicating issues like Mercury and Pluto in EP axis - let's stay in one framework for a moment), we'd list the foreground planets thus:

0°21' Jupiter
1°04' Moon
1°10' Pluto
5°35' Mars

All of these are important. Even the least angular of these four (Mars) is dramatically stronger than, say, Sun, Venus Uranus, and Neptune. Nonetheless, we can see at a glance that there is a sharp drop off between the first three and the last. In doing a thumbnail of the chart, I'd start by saying there is a tight Moon-Jupiter-Pluto trio gripping the angles closely and, well, yeah, some Mars. We then get into other complexities when we consider other stuff like, say, the Aries Sun and Taurus Moon; but I think you get the point: It's not just that "a roughly 1° orb is the sharp cut-off point," so much as that there's not a lot of difference in the orbs of the first three (though Jupiter is really close).


The other main tactic in ranking the relative importance of angularity is that there do appear to be places where the drop-off is steeper. You can group angularities, therefore, in reasonable categories, as long as you understand that the boundaries are a little arbitrary and you remain flexible about the categories.

1. Partile reigns supreme. At a 1° orb from the angles, planets are at about 99% of their expressiveness. (I did a separate study of the solar and lunar ingresses after we had the basics of SMA in place https://solunars.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=515 and concluded that, most of the time, the most intensive effects, distinguishing bigger events from lesser events, tended to be expressed by partile angularity, though this was by no means uniform. It's a big enough deal that should note partile distinctions, but not so big a deal that I should be limited by them. Read the linked thread for a more nuanced discussion.

2. OTOH there are a lot of times when you just can't tell (in a practical way) the difference between 1° and 2° orbs. In fact, in mundane astrology, conjunctions with quotidian angles and transit to solar ingress angles has a 2° orb with no general distinction within that (other than "closer is strong" being interpreted that when one planet is 0°30' from an angle and another 1°58' from an angle, the first will tend to characterize the event better). I began testing SMA with a 1° orb for these things and found that I was missing far too much; I tried with a 3° orb and found there was too much random "noise" of unrelated, "who cares" sort of hits for these transits and quotidian crossings; but 2° was the sweet spot that seemed to give a reliable "best set" of results.

3. The drop-off at 3° is marked. (One would say the slope of the curve steepens.) In mundane astrology (ingresses), the 3° boundary (or just past) distinguishes the practical "dormancy" effect - if a chart doesn't have anything angular within that range, it isn't saying anything distinctive for that locale and we reliably see the prior ingress (of the same type) "flow through" and stay dominant. However, in mundane astrology that probably is influenced (at least somewhat) by the need to distinguish one place from all others, e.g., something that would make the Chicago area distinctive from Omaha or Cleveland. At 3° orb you already have plus-minus 150-200 miles, which is a wide swath. -- Yet also, in natal charts and personal solar and lunar returns, it seems there is a drop-off at about 3° also.

We don't have to be this meticulous in our distinctions in practice, though it's good to know the distinctions when we're in a pinch. Putting these first three points together, we can really just say that priority can be given to anything without about 3° of the angles, with 1° orbs being really special within that, and remembering that the whole march from 0° to 3° is a gradual drop-off.


4. The next obvious drop-off in the curve is about 7°.

5. The effective "final"drop-off is about 10°.


These points let us have three "classes" of aspect orbs for the primary angles (horizon and meridian) similar to the three "classes" of aspects. The result we get is quite similar to what we get for conjunctions and oppositions (which also have an effective "final" drop-off at about 10°), though it's not quite the same. The practical guidelines I'd give are:

1. Think of angularity orbs in three "classes" with orbs of 3°, 7°, 10°. Read Class 1 first, etc. and (especially when there are a LOT of foreground planets) don't go on to a further class when you have enough information.

2. Within this, there remains something magical about the 1° orb.

3. In any case, rank (by orb) the foreground planets and look for obvious thresholds defined by what's in a given chart, as demonstrated above.

[Jim Eshelman]

As a postscript, I should say something about secondary angles. We don't have a general model worked out for these, but we can draw some conclusions from

1. observations about where the "final cut-off" is and
2. remembering that the nature of the orb has to be gradual or tapering.

By observation, I recommend the following orbs for secondary angles.

1. Eastpoint and Westpoint (in RA) and Zenith and Nadir (in longitude) are strongest within 2° and effective within 3°.

2. Ecliptical squares to MC and IC are strongest within 2° and I take this as an absolute drop-off. I can't justify these squares to 3°.

Why would there be a difference of the last set from the others? I don't know, i.e., I'd have to guess or make something up. I suspect it is because the "squares to MC" exist in different forms - ecliptical, right ascension, along the prime vertical - and there is some probabilistic factor involved. I only report what I find. (I justify remaining ignorant of the details it in practice by noting that we're rarely caught in a situation where it matters.)

The "partile" equivalent of these smaller-orbed contacts has to be smaller, i.e., the curve would be tighter. I can't say for sure what it is (in the same way that one can't always distinguish 1° from 2° orbs in the primary angles), but one might guess it's around 0°40'. In practice it essentially never matters.

You can think of the 2° orb as Class 1, the 3° orb as Class 2, an the drop-off so steep that Class 3 doesn't matter; and in ecliptical squares to MC, you basically have only a Class 1 distinction.

[Jim Eshelman]

As a further example in the groupings, my fiancée's chart is my best example of lots of angular planets. Nine of her planets are accentuated either by angularity or luminary aspect and the tenth one stationary, and assessing the relative strength of the ten planetary need-sets in her character is more of a matter of seeing what outweighs something else.

Using the "classes" categorization, and estimating how minor angle orbs layer into major angle orbs, I get the following set:

Class 1
1°09' Mercury on Asc [stationary]
1°02' Mars sq. Asc (Nadir)

Class 2
2°14' Uranus sq. Asc (Nadir)
6°06' Sun on Asc [w/ Moon, Mars, & 2 other planets in Leo]

Class 3
7°08' Neptune on Dsc
7°23' Venus on Asc [but w/ Sun in Taurus]

(Just to fill out the other plants, she has Pluto strongly aspecting both luminaries, Moon square Sun, Saturn middleground and stationary, and Jupiter background but in Class 2 sextile to Sun).

From a point of pure angularity, without shaving things too closely, we see that Mercury and Mars are clearly the strongest, Sun and Uranus come next (but we have to consider the immense solar expression of all her Leo), and Venus and Neptune third (weighed against the Taurus luminary).

This is how, in practice, I use the "classes" approach and the "rank the planets in order of orbs" together. In reading this chart "cold,m" I'd start with the Mercury and Mars emphasis, and play that against the Taurus Sun and Leo Moon, Mars, and stellium (thereby already incorporating the solar influence); include Uranus primarily as part of the Mars-Uranus conjunction; and eventually get to the Venus-Neptune 0°03' opposition (the closest aspect in the chart) as a spin off of the Taurus luminary. (Or something like that.)