What are aspects in Astrology?

If you’ve heard astrologers banging on about ‘aspects’ but not known what they’re talking about, today’s post is for you. I’ve made an explainer with volunteer stick figure Doris as our guide. Let’s dive in…

Pic 2. Doris is the teeny lady standing on Planet Earth, enjoying some star gazing. She’s looking out at the Moon above - it’s night time, so she can’t see the Sun, which is down below the horizon line. The sky is teeming with stars and planets, but I’ve just chucked in a few for demonstration purposes. Obviously the scale is all wrong. In reality the planets are endlessly out of frame, but it doesn’t matter - this shows the direction that Doris has to look to see them, not their exact distance.

Pic 3. Ditching the background, we can see how astrologers ‘map’ the sky. From the centre of earth, we draw lines up to the planets. Then using geometry principles we measure the angles between the lines. Borrow a protractor from your kid’s room (let’s face it - they won’t miss it). Overlay it on the screen and see if you can test out how accurate my freehand drawing is (I’ll tell you now, the sextile is wide, but the rest aren’t too bad).

In this example, the Sun and Moon are about 180 degrees (or half a circle) apart. This is an ‘aspect’ between the planets called an Opposition. This is one of 5 ‘major’ aspects that include the Opposition (180deg), Trine (120deg), Square (90deg), Sextile (60deg) and when the planets sit together, it’s called a Conjunction (0deg).

Pic 4. This transition pic fades the image to show how we transform the reality of the sky into the geometric framework of the two-dimensional astrological map. Symbols represent the planets.

Pic 5. With the background gone, we’re left with the simplified astrology ‘chart’, which is just a map of the sky, as viewed from our position on earth. You can see the planets are now just the green symbols. If you’ve got a copy of your birth chart, then this might be starting to look familiar.

Pic 6. Most charts have a centre section, where the ‘aspects’ are represented by intersecting lines. Oppositions and Squares are usually red, Trines and Sextiles are blue. Lines get thicker depending on how ‘tight’ the aspect is. Tight aspects are closer to the exact degree definition and impact you more strongly.

And voila! That’s it. An aspect is just the angle that two planets make to each other, as viewed from our position on Earth. Aspects can be ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ and they completely filter the energy of each day. 

Big round of applause for Doris and her intrepid outdoor adventuring! And if you’re interested to know which aspects were active at the moment when you were born, then book a session here… www.northernbeachesastrology.com/bookings