Sacred Astra Begin Your Reading

A free tool

The sky on
17 December 2023.

Every planet at noon, Greenwich time, with the Moon’s phase and what was retrograde.

The MoonWaxing Crescent25% lit, waxing

Moon inAquarius25° Aquarius

Sun inSagittarius25° Sagittarius

Mercury, Jupiter and Uranus are retrograde.

16 December 2023 Today 18 December 2023

The zodiac with Aries at the left, every planet in its sign and the Moon at the centre, lit as it is that day.

Every planet

PlanetSignDegreeMotion
SunSagittarius25°Direct
MoonAquarius25°Direct
MercuryCapricorn6°Retrograde
VenusScorpio15°Direct
MarsSagittarius16°Direct
JupiterTaurus5°Retrograde
SaturnPisces2°Direct
UranusTaurus19°Retrograde
NeptunePisces24°Direct
PlutoCapricorn28°Direct

The closest aspects

  • Sun sextile Moon0.0°
  • Sun square Neptune0.3°
  • Mercury trine Jupiter0.9°
  • Jupiter sextile Saturn3.8°
  • Neptune sextile Pluto4.0°
  • Venus opposition Uranus4.7°
  • Mercury sextile Saturn4.8°
  • Moon square Uranus5.5°

The number is the orb: how far the two planets are from the exact angle.

Reading the wheel

The outer ring is the zodiac, with Aries at the left and the signs running counterclockwise, the way a birth chart is drawn. Each planet sits at its place in its sign. The lines across the middle join planets in a major aspect: blue for the easy ones, trines and sextiles, and rose for the tense ones, squares and oppositions.

What retrograde means

A planet is retrograde when, seen from Earth, it seems to move backwards through the zodiac for a while. It is an effect of our own orbit overtaking it, or it overtaking us. Astrology reads those weeks as a time to review, repair and return, rather than to begin.

The Moon’s phase and sign

The Moon changes sign every two and a half days, and goes from new to full and back in about twenty nine and a half. At any one moment its sign and phase are the same wherever you are on Earth.