How to read a birth chart wheel: what you see and what you can tap

What does a birth chart wheel show?

The wheel is a map of the sky as seen from your birthplace, at the minute of your birth, and you read it from the outside in. A line under the wheel recalls the conventions used: “Tropical zodiac · Placidus houses · major aspects”. The page on calculation accuracy explains how the positions are obtained.

You will find it on your chart page, under the heading “Your birth chart, where your reading comes from”: the “Wheel” pill in the page menu takes you straight there. No chart yet? Calculate your birth chart for free, without an account, or start with the guide to the calculation.

• The ring of signs, all around: the twelve zodiac signs, each in the color of its element.
• The ring of houses, just inside it: twelve numbers, from 1 to 12.
• The planets: colored discs, each with its glyph and its degree.
• The aspect circle, in the center: the colored lines that connect the planets to one another.

The ring of signs and the four angles: ASC, DSC, MC and IC

The signs form the outer ring. Their color tells you their element: orange for Fire, green for Earth, yellow for Air, blue for Water. At a glance, you can see which elements your planets fall in. Fine tick marks, every ten degrees, line the inside of the ring.

Four bold labels mark the angles, the most sensitive points of a chart. ASC, the Ascendant, is always on the left, at nine o’clock: it is the degree that was rising in the east when you were born. DSC, the Descendant, faces it on the right; MC, the Midheaven, sits toward the top, and IC, the Imum Coeli, toward the bottom. From the Ascendant, the zodiac runs counterclockwise.

On a large screen, the degree of every angle and every house cusp is written around the wheel. On a phone, the explanation gives it as soon as you tap the element.

The houses: why twelve slices of different sizes?

Inside the signs, the twelve houses divide the wheel into areas of life. House 1 starts at the Ascendant, and the numbers follow counterclockwise. Every other house is lightly shaded so you can tell the slices apart without reading anything, and the numbers 1, 4, 7 and 10, those of the angular houses, stand out in color.

The lines between the houses are the cusps; those of the four angles are thicker and cross the whole wheel. Houses are calculated in Placidus, the most widely used system in Western astrology: it divides the sky by time, so the houses are not all the same size, and that is normal. Above 66 degrees of latitude, where Placidus can no longer be calculated, the site switches to equal houses and says so at the top of the page.

Without a birth time, the wheel appears without houses or angles, because they turn by about one degree every four minutes. The page on birth time explains where to find yours.

Planets on the wheel: glyphs, degrees and retrogrades

Each colored disc carries the white glyph of a planet or a point: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, the North and South Nodes, Chiron and Lilith, fourteen in all. The number written in the disc, or right next to it when space is tight, is its degree in the sign. An “R” follows it when the planet is retrograde.

A stem connects each disc to a small tick of its color on the graduated ring: that is where its exact degree lies. When several planets crowd into the same sector, as in a stellium, the discs shrink and spread apart a little to stay readable. The stem always shows the true position, and therefore the right house.

Under the wheel, a legend lists every planet with its sign: “Sun Taurus”, “Moon Aquarius”… Each chip opens just like the planet on the wheel: the quickest way to find your Venus without hunting for it.

Lilith and the Nodes are never marked retrograde: they are calculated points, not planets, and the true Node moves backward almost all the time.

Aspect lines: what do the colors mean?

In the center, each line connects two planets that form an aspect, meaning a precise angle between them. The wheel only draws the major aspects, each in its own color: reds speak of tension, blues of ease, gold of fusion.

A thicker line marks an exact aspect, within one degree. Aspects to the Ascendant and the Midheaven are not drawn, to keep the center readable: you will find them in the table of all aspects. A line under the legend shows the color of each aspect present on your wheel, and the aspects page explains them one by one.

• Conjunction (0°), in gold: two energies acting with one voice.
• Sextile (60°), in sky blue, thinner than the others: an opportunity that is easy to seize.
• Square (90°), in red: a tension that pushes you to act.
• Trine (120°), in blue: a talent that flows naturally.
• Opposition (180°), in raspberry: two needs to bring into balance.

What happens when you tap the wheel?

Above the wheel, the “Interactive wheel” label says it: every planet, sign, house, aspect line and angle explains itself. A bubble opens with the kind of element, its name, its exact position and two or three sentences drawn from the site’s interpretations, then the link “Read the full page →”.

When you tap a planet, the lines that do not involve it fade away, leaving only its own aspects. The bubble also lists them under “Its aspects”, four at most, tightest first. Each chip leads to the aspect’s page, and a long press shows a preview of it.

1. On a phone, tap an element: its explanation opens at the bottom of the screen.
2. To aim at a small element, keep your finger pressed for a moment, then slide: a magnifier enlarges the wheel above your finger.
3. Let go on the element you want: its explanation stays open.
4. To close it, swipe the explanation down, tap the cross, or tap anywhere else on the page.

On a computer, hover over an element for a preview and click to keep the bubble open; the Escape key closes it. With a keyboard, the Tab key moves from one element to the next and Enter opens its explanation.

From the wheel to the interpretations: planets in signs, in houses, aspects

A planet’s bubble already brings two readings together: its sentence in its sign, then its sentence in its house. “Read the full page →” opens the interpretation of the planet in its sign; a house leads to the house page, a sign to the sign page, a line to the aspect page. The planets, signs and houses pages gather all of these interpretations.

To read everything in one go, scroll down to “Your chart in detail”: the “The interpretation of each placement” fold presents every planet in its sign, in its house and every aspect as cards to expand, and the “All the aspects and the houses” fold gives both tables, orbs and cusps included.

On a phone, “Placements and dominants” unfolds under the wheel: each placement to the degree, its house and the balance of elements. On a computer, these tables sit next to the wheel. To pull all of it together into a portrait, the method is on the page how to read your birth chart.

The reading at the top of the page starts from this same chart: see how the express reading is composed.

The same wheel elsewhere on the site

The same gestures work on Sky today, on the solar return and on My transits. On Sky today, the wheel shows the current sky, with houses calculated for Paris, and talks about the transits in progress: the guide to Sky today covers it in detail.