What are transits in astrology?

Transits are the planets in the sky now (or on a chosen date) measured against the planets in your natal chart. The natal chart stays put: it is the baseline from your birth date, time and place. Transits move. A transiting Saturn square your natal Sun is a temporary contact between today’s Saturn and the Sun you were born with. People search “what are transits in astrology?” when they want to know whether the natal chart changes. It does not. The weather over it does.

SideraChart calculates transits with the same tropical engine as the natal: astronomy-engine (VSOP87), major aspects at 8° / 6° / 4°. The daily cabinet stores one overlay per calendar date at noon in the natal timezone, so the day’s note stays stable if you refresh at 23:00. Missed dates are not backfilled.

Natal positions are a snapshot. Transits are a second snapshot compared with the first. You need a saved natal chart to do this honestly. Without natal longitudes you are only listing today’s sky, which is astronomy, not a personal transit reading.

If the natal birth time was unknown, natal houses are already off the table. Transiting planets “through your seventh house” then have no honest wall to go through. You can still transit to natal planets (Sun, Moon if the sign was safe, Mercury, and the rest). Unknown time = natal planets yes, natal houses no — transits inherit that limit.

The Moon transits a natal planet in hours. The Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars take days to weeks to cross a natal point. Jupiter and Saturn take longer. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto can sit on a natal degree for months, with retrogrades stretching the story. Fast transits are weather. Slow transits are climate. Neither is a medical or financial instruction.

Orbs stay the same names: conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition. A transiting conjunction to natal Venus inside 8° is the same geometry as a natal conjunction, except one end of the aspect is moving. Tight applying transits are the ones worth listing first in a daily note.

A “day” of transits has to pick a moment. If the cabinet recomputed at every page load, the Moon would wander and the note would not match yesterday’s screenshot. Noon in the natal timezone is a stable civil snapshot for that date. It is not your birth time, and it is not a claim that transits only matter at lunch.

The cabinet writes one row per calendar date when you open it. Tomorrow, yesterday’s row remains. A skipped week stays skipped; the product does not invent history. You need a saved natal and an account for that journal. Public calculators remain usable without signing in.

List transiting planets that make major aspects to natal Sun, Moon, rising (if you have a time), and any tight natal configurations. Prefer slow contacts for the headline, fast ones for the weather. Do not promote a transiting Moon square to a life decision. Do not ignore a transiting Saturn conjunction to natal Sun either; just do not turn it into legal or medical advice.

Keep tropical transits on a tropical natal. Sidereal transits on a tropical natal mix zero points and waste the 24° gap. SideraChart will not do that mix. Placidus natal houses, if they exist, are the rooms transits pass through. Empty natal houses can still receive transits; emptiness was about natal planets, not a ban on later traffic.

They are not a new natal chart. They are not a newspaper Sun-sign horoscope, though they are closer to “your week” than the natal wheel alone. They are not synastry (two natal charts) and not a composite (midpoints). They are not Swiss Ephemeris, Vedic dashas, or Chinese day pillars. This site’s transit layer is Western tropical positions against a Western tropical natal.

Use them as a dated overlay. Print or download the day’s text if you want a record. Then go back to the natal when you need the baseline. The natal chart is the instrument you calibrated at birth. Transits are the later sky running across it.

If you skip a week, leave the gap. Backfilling noon snapshots for days you did not open would invent a journal you did not keep. The natal chart is still there. Open today’s date when you want today’s weather, not a reconstructed month.