How the daily horoscope is made, from real transits

How is the daily horoscope calculated?

It all starts with the ephemerides: the positions of the Sun, the Moon and the planets are calculated for the date, at noon, Paris time. The sign a planet is in is the same everywhere on Earth at the same instant; Paris only serves as the reference time.

For each of the twelve signs, the site then looks at where the Moon, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn stand in relation to it, sign to sign. That configuration picks the sentences of the day and sets the scores. Nothing is left to chance: the same sign on the same date always gives the same horoscope. Five relations count:

• In your sign: the planet brings its energy straight to you.
• In sextile (two signs away): opportunities that come through other people.
• In trine (four signs away): smooth support, projects that move without forcing.
• In square (three signs away): a tension that calls for a decision.
• In opposition (the facing sign): relationships and the other person in the spotlight.

Where do the Love, Work & money and Energy scores come from?

Each horoscope carries three scores out of five, in stars. Each one adds up the planets that rule its area, according to their relation to your sign. Jupiter and Saturn stay in the same sign for months: they only weigh lightly, so the score does not freeze for a whole season.

It is the Moon, changing sign every two and a half days, that makes the scores move from one day to the next. No score drops below two stars: a demanding day is never a lost day. Here is what counts in each one:

• Love: Venus first, then Mars and the Moon; a retrograde Venus tempers the score.
• Work & money: Mercury and Mars, then Saturn, Jupiter, the Sun and the Moon; a retrograde Mercury tempers the score.
• Energy: Mars and the Sun, the Moon, and Saturn when it is moving through your sign.

What you read on your sign’s page

Under the sign’s name, the page gives the keyword of the day and the phase of the Moon with its sign. Then come the three scores and four paragraphs: “Today’s climate” (the Moon, the Sun and the lunar phase), “Love and relationships”, “Work and money” and “Energy and well-being”, which ends on the planet that rules your sign. “Advice of the day” rounds it off.

After the advice, “The transits that concern you” lists the planets in relation with your sign that day. When Venus is moving through Libra, for example, the Gemini page shows “Venus in Libra, in trine”. A last line names any retrograde planets. For every position and the exact aspects of the day, open today’s sky; for retrograde dates, the retrograde planets page.

Tomorrow’s, weekly, monthly and yearly horoscopes

Under the horoscope, a row of buttons leads to the other periods: “← Yesterday”, “Tomorrow →”, “Week”, “Month”, and “Year” followed by the current or the next year. Every date also has its own page. The period horoscopes follow the same rules as the daily one, stretched over time: their scores are the average of the daily scores across the period.

• Tomorrow: the next day’s horoscope, at an address that never changes, with “The sky of this day”: the Moon’s path and the exact aspects between planets, in Paris time.
• Week: Monday to Sunday, with the Moon’s path through the signs and “Key dates”: sign ingresses, new and full moons, retrograde stations, each one dated.
• Month: the calendar month, with its sign ingresses, its retrogrades and its lunations, all listed in the lunar calendar.
• Year: Jupiter and Saturn in your solar houses, the eclipses, then the twelve months one by one in “Month by month”.

The day gives the mood, the week the appointments, the month and the year the direction: read them together to know both how to move forward today and towards what.

Solar houses: why you should also read your rising sign’s horoscope

A sign horoscope does not know your birth time. So it uses solar houses: your sign becomes house 1, the next one house 2, and so on. For an Aries, a New Moon in Libra falls in solar house 7: the horoscope reads it as a fresh start around committed relationships, partnerships and contracts.

That is why the site recommends reading two horoscopes: the one for your Sun sign, which describes the background mood, and the one for your rising sign, which describes concrete events. Your Ascendant sets the real houses of your chart, more precise still than solar houses. If you don’t know it, the rising sign calculator gives it to you for free from your birth time.

Daily horoscope or personal transits: what is the difference?

The daily horoscope describes the trend for a whole sign, shared by everyone born under it. Your transits lay the same sky over your complete birth chart: which planet touches which point of your chart, with what orb, and in which house. Two people of the same sign can live the same day very differently, because their planets and houses are not in the same place.

As long as your chart is not kept on the device, your sign’s page offers “See what this day activates for me”: the birth form opens and takes you to your transits, with the strongest passage, today’s Moon in your houses and your reading of the week. The full guide is on the My transits help page.

Get the horoscope every morning, or your own tailored one

Your sign’s horoscope can also land in your inbox every morning, free, with a one-click unsubscribe. Everything is explained on the horoscope by e-mail help page.

With My Birth Chart+, at €9.99 a month, the morning horoscope becomes tailored: it is composed every morning for your exact chart, from today’s transits on your chart and what matters to you right now, rather than for a whole sign. It comes with unlimited questions to your chart (all about the subscription).