Solunars by Aldebaran Sidereal Academy

Quotidians don't seem to fulfill the expectation that they will show the tone of the day in general. This was disappointing when I first leaned it. I'd gotten the impression from Fagan that this is exactly what they would do.

But they do have stronger voice when multiple planets hit angles at the same time. That is, it seems to be in the aspects, not the individual crossings, that stuff happens. Nearly always, transiting factors have to be involved, i.e., simply having a natal paran come to the angles (as it does on a similar day every year of one's life) generally doesn't have much voice.

This morning was such an example. For a day or two, I'd had the signs of an eye infection starting. By this morning, it was full blown, swollen and red, and a real nuisance. There is nothing in my ongoing transits to show it; or, rather, there is, but I thought it would peak Sunday: Transiting Mars is square my Moon and it just moved within partile orb (though it's exact Sunday). I suppose that's what I'd credit this to in the absence of anything else, but there was a much more significant indication.

Here is my SNQ for when I got out of bed this morning:

28°40' Vir - SNQ Asc
28°55' Sag - r Mars
1°03' Can - SNQ MC
1°04' Cap - t Pluto
1°20' Lib - r Neptune

Natal Mars-Neptune, the aspect of inflammatory and infections afflictions, exactly angular AND touched by transiting Pluto. Quite on target! (I now have a week's worth of antibiotics and expect to start getting better by morning.)

What's also interesting to me is that, if I'd stayed in LA for my last birthday, I'd have had this aspect all year. My LA SSR MC was 0°20' Cancer. Here, on nearly the last day of the SSR year, the SSR has nearly looped an entire circle (SQ MC 27°12' Gem, or about 4° earlier) but the SNQ slipped through and caught the planets. I'll have the same angles in my Solar Quotidian on... oh, I won't have it at all, since it would mature a day or two after the SSR expires.

I suppose I'll still have a touch tomorrow, since PSSR MC rotates to conjoin natal Neptune (squared by transiting Pluto) with natal Mars on EP-a. With the new SLR the next day (and the passing of the quotidians), it should be gone by the time Mars actually squares my Moon.

An example of a more disappointing SNQ than the example above. (I mean this "disappointing" in the astrological science sense, not personally. I'm quite happy not to have this one work out.)

Yesterday (using 7 AM, the start of my work day, for an example) my SNQ looked like this:

5°12' Cap - t Pluto
5°44' Cap - SNQ MC

22°04' Ari - SNQ Asc
22°17' Ari - t Uranus
22°52' Lib - p Saturn

If we'd seen a lunar return with these angles and planets, we would have expected a very strong effect - and we'd have gotten it! It would have shaken stability and been terribly uncomfortable if not a little threatening.

Yesterday WAS an unusual day, but only in the amount of things I had to juggle and handle. It was crazy busy - I expected outright chaotic since Mars was starting to conjoin my Eris (and in the past I've seen thing show as chaotic days that make me angry), but I don't think it ever quite reached chaotic. It was enormously busy, juggling complexity. The most Uranus-and-Pluto-to-Saturn thing was that scheduling details I thought were settled kept changing and plans had to be adapted - and it took hours (arduous, no breaks).

I suppose we can say that the symbolism fit (though I can think of several other astrological energies that would have fit better). Nonetheless, if that's all I get from Uranus-and-Pluto-to-Saturn exactly on angles, then it's really not worth concerning myself.

This is the general sense I've had of the quotidians for a long time: If one expects them to work (for a day) like lunar returns (for a fortnight), they won't. They MIGHT tip the scales on a day, they might brig a forming aspect to a head, but they don't do much by themselves. (And then, every now and then, they bowl you over.) Individual crossings aren't big deals (especially natal planets that cross every year - their value seems to be in the aspects on angles, not just planets on angles). And yet, yesterday was a day with strong planet interactions and nothing of it (or so slight that one didn't really need to know about it).

In contrast to this, the quotidians of solar ingresses are routinely astonishing!

The real work on quotidians is going to be isolating those few crossings a month that amount to a big deal.

And, btw, with the SNQ there is a good chance that we're off give or take a degree on the angles (where the angles usually have orbs of 1°) because current software doesn't use the sidereal year in the "year for a day" equation. I don't really know how far this throws things off. TMSA down the road will give us the chance to test this with entirely correct charts, which might be a problem now.

Jim Eshelman wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 6:43 am And, btw, with the SNQ there is a good chance that we're off give or take a degree on the angles (where the angles usually have orbs of 1°) because current software doesn't use the sidereal year in the "year for a day" equation. I don't really know how far this throws things off. TMSA down the road will give us the chance to test this with entirely correct charts, which might be a problem now.

I suppose I could spot check this.

Using averages that are good enough, the sidereal year for 2000 was 365.256363004 ephemeris days long. One civil day (mean solar day) is equal (within a few seconds of variance over decades) to an ephemeris day.

Yesterday at 7 AM PDT was JD 2460046.084287. I was born at JD 2435025.926052. Therefore, I was 25,020.158235 days old. Dividing this by the above length of the sidereal year gives 68.50026657776801 sidereal years which, expressed as days, is 68 days 12:00:23. Adding this to my birth moment expressed in UT (days in Oct 1954):

10d 10:13:00 UT
68d 12:00:23
--------------------
78d 22:13:23 UT

October 78 is December 17. Therefore, the SNQ should be calculated for December 17, 1954, 22:13:23 UT, which, for my home location, gives

MC 4°47' Cap
Asc 20°47' Ari

In contrast, Solar Fire gives MC 5°44' Capricorn, nearly 1° later - and Asc 22°04' Aries, more than a degree later.

OK, this is surely the explanation for why these charts don't time well. We're seeing an effect similar to the precession rate but actually from a different cause. SF (using a tropical year for secondary progressions) has RAMC 302°02' for yesterday at 7 AM, while manually calculating based on a sidereal year rate 301°02', exactly 1°00' of RAMC different (slightly faster decay than the precession rate, which was 0°57').

Until we get a correct way to calculate this routinely, a close fudge is to subtract accrued precession since birth from the RAMC of the SNQ. I just have to remember that my angles are currently REALLY about 1° earlier than calculation shows.

That's one reason why yesterday did not show the SNQ effect one might have expected: The angles were off. In that case, though, I'm more likely to get the effect today, especially the later part of today - if at all.

PS - You can set up a spreadsheet to do this easily enough. Take three cells X, Y, and Z, and format them as date cells, then a fourth one as a number. The date format you want is mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss. In the 4th cell (let's call it S), put 365.256363004 (the number of days in a sidereal year). Put the birth date/time in the first cell. Put the event date/time in the second one. Set the third one to =((Y-X)/S)+X, substituting the actual cell locations. Cell Z will display the date and time for which to calculate the SNQ.

I just thought of a better way to test this, one that doesn't rely on average lengths of the sidereal year: I'll have exact sidereal years if I measure from my prior SSR.

The timing I tested above was April 11, 2023, 7:00 AM at my home. Solar Fire (using the tropical year) gave SNQ MC 5 Cap 12, Asc 22 Ari 04. Testing it with an average length of the sidereal year, I got MC 4 Cap 47, Asc 20 Ari 47 (a chart for December 17, 1954, 22:13:23 UT).

The event was JD 2460046.084287.
My prior (2022) SSR was 10/10/22 20:33:01 UT = JD 2459863.357198
My following (2023) SSR was 10/11/23 2:46:09 UT = JD 2460228.616336

NOTE: What follows isn't how I suggest people calculate these charts - we software to do this - but is a one-time test to confirm how we have to calculate it.) For the math-minded following along, complete sidereal years end at each new SSR, so we don't have to use estimates. Similarly, the time between consecutive SSRs determines the actual current sidereal year length, so the portion of the current year elapsed can be determined precisely.

The event was 68 whole sidereal years after my birth, so secondary progressions for the moment of my 2022 SSR would be precisely my birth time (4:13 AM CST = 2:13 AM PST) 68 days after my birth, or December 17, 1954. What time?

Subtracting 2022 SSR JD from "event" JD shows 182.727089 days had elapsed.
Subtracting the two SSR JDs shows a sidereal year length of 365.259138 days (longer than average).
Dividing 182.727089 by 365.259138 gives 0.500266989; and 0.500266989 of a day is 12:00:23.
Adding this to the birth time (2:13 AM PST) gives 2:13:23 PM PST. This agrees with the prior calculation to the second of time despite the fact that the sidereal year 2022-23 was longer than average).

So the progressed chart for the test date and time would be calculated for December 17, 1954, 2:13:33 PM PST at my residence.

I should do a few more of these for precision events to confirm that using the average length of the sidereal year will always work this well.

Marion was born May 30, 1963, 5:03 AM EDT, Staten Island, NY. She fell and broke her ankle in three places September 1, 2023, 3:30 PM PDT, Los Olivos, CA. The SNQ (using what I believe is the wrong rate) was already outstanding - the best chart in the batch - so this is a good test of both what theory performs better and whether the calculation methods match.

As detailed in another thread (based on the traditional tropical year formula):

3°51' Leo - r Mars
3°53' Tau - SNQ MC

7°07' Leo - r Uranus
7°18' Leo - SNQ Asc
8°21' Aqu - t Saturn

28°52' Cap - r Saturn exactly on EP at 29°14' Cap
29°18' Can - SNQ EP-a


Collating the Julian Day numbers:
Birth: JD 2438179.877485
Event: JD 2460189.438454
2023 SSR: JD 2460095.258929
2024 SSR: JD 2460460.480706

METHOD BASED ON AVERAGE SIDEREAL YEAR LENGTH: Age at event 22,009.56097 days. Divide by average sidereal year length 365.256363004. Age 60.25784408 sidereal years, equal in secondary progressions to 60d 6:11:18. Add to the birth date/time gives July 29, 1963, 8:14:18 PDT.

MC 3°04' Tau / Asc 6°36' Leo / EP-a 28°26' Can

Notice that the orbs are closer with the tropical year - r Mars +2', r Uranus +11', r Saturn +4' - all three are still partile in the sidereal year version. The angle does move farther from transiting Saturn, but that wasn't quite partile to begin with; and we pick up progressed Mercury (on EP-a at 28°11' Cancer). The orbs in the SNQ calculated by this sidereal year method are: r Mars -47', r Uranus -31', r Saturn -48', p Mercury +15'.

Now we need to see if calculating this with the mean length of the sidereal year produces the same results as the most careful calculations.

METHOD BASED ON EXACT COMPLETE SIDEREAL YEARS: Time elapsed from prior SSR to the event was 94.179525 days. Length of the current sidereal year was 365.221777 (surprisingly short). Dividing shows that 0.257869412 of the current sidereal year had elapsed (above, we got 0.25784408) or 6:11:20. This is within 2 seconds of the 6:11:18 calculated above! (Half a minute of arc on an angle.)

So, yes, the method of calculating using the mean length of the sidereal year seems to be entirely adequate for all astrological purposes.

How does this work across multiple centuries. Are we still on the right track?

The United States was born (by best refinement) July 4, 1776, 12:10:43 PM LAT, in Philadelphia (17:15:18 UT), JD 2369916.219146.

A mob began its active siege of the U.S. Capitol January 6, 2021, 12:51 PM EST (using the coordinates of the Capitol itself).

Using Solar Fire (based on a tropical year), the SNQ angles are:
MC 26°45' Leo / Asc 11°49' Sco / EP-a 28°34' Sco
Planets within about 1° of an angle are: None. (However, r Mars crossed EP-a at 29°36' Taurus, just over 1°.)
The most interesting involvement of the progressions, though, was transiting Neptune 23°34' Aqu conjunct progressed Sun 24°24' Aqu, more than 2° from an angle but a valid transit in its own right.

Birth: JD 2369916.219146
Event: JD 2459221.244668
2020 SSR: JD 2459038.744789
2021 SSR: JD 2459403.960652

USING MEAN SIDEREAL YEAR LENGTH: Age 89305.02552 days. Average year length 365.256363004 days. Progressed time 244.499575 days, or 244d 11:59:23.

USING ACTUAL SIDEREAL YEAR LENGTHS: Time since last SSR 182.499879 days. Length of current sidereal year 365.215863 days. 0.499704141 days = 11:59:34. This differs (over almost two and a half centuries) by 11 seconds of time, or 0°03' on the angles.

An argument could be made that the second method should be used, therefore, to get the most accurate result in all circumstances; or that it isn't needed because this is a small amount of difference (far better than almost any birth time is recorded) across the small number of cases it would be tried.

Meanwhile, though, how do the angles look for this revised calculation, using a sidereal year instead of a tropical year as the basis of secondary progressions? Using the second method (since it is minutely better):
Astounding! The one most interesting, most reflective progression came to an angle (one defining planet partile, the other not quite partile for this birth time)!

9°07' Sco - SNQ Asc
23°08' Leo - SNQ MC
23°34' Aqu - t Neptune
24°23' Aqu - p Sun
25°28' Sco - SNQ EP-a

7°15' Cap - t Saturn
7°50' Cap - p Pluto
8°02' Cap - p Moon [oc. 23°02' Aqu]