Planetary Activations Explorer (Coming soon!)

Page under construction!

What is it?

• The Planetary Activations Explorer is a spreadsheet calculator which allows you to explore an astrological timing technique as described in Book VII of the Anthology by 2nd century Hellenistic astrologer Vettius Valens.
• The main idea of the technique is this: Planets are “activated” and their natal potential is realized as they complete the durations of their minor periods, ascensional times, and the combinations and divisions thereof.
• This calculator uses birth data to generate the dates/times of these activations so that astrologers can explore the possibilities of this technique.
• More information on using this technique in practice can be found here.

Features

• Automatic natal chart calculation with the new implementation of API’s
• Automatic calculation of ascensional times with high precision
• Automatic calculation of the start/end date-times of all combinations and divisions of planetary period/ascensional time activations for single planets
• Automatic calculation of the start/end date-times of all combinations and divisions of planetary period/ascensional time activations for all two-planet aspects
• Dynamic visualization of the duration and intensity of planetary period/ascensional time activations across a lifetime
• Select between compact and expanded views of planetary period/ascensional time activations across a lifetime
• Automatic calculation of annual profections
• Automatic detection of aspect configurations in a given natal chart
• Specify your orb degree preferences
• Turn individual aspects on/off

Requirements

• You must have a Google account to be able to access the spreadsheet and to get your own copy in Google Drive.
• You must have an internet connection to be able to use this spreadsheet.

Limitations

• In order to keep the cost of the calculator down, I am using a combination of free API’s for automatic natal chart calculation:
  • • Geonames API for retrieving the coordinates for a given place
    • Timezonedb API for retrieving the timezone and DST status for a given time and place
    • FreeAstrology API for calculating the Ascendant and planetary positions for a given time and place
    • US Naval Observatory Astronomical API for calculating sidereal time for calculating the Midheaven and ascensional times.
    • These services may occasionally have interruptions and cannot take responsibility for their status.
• The time zone API tends to observe DST changes by date rather than precise hour, so if the birth data you’re investigating is close to a Spring Forward/Fall Back day, it is possible the angles may be incorrect, so you would need to check the birth data against what other reliable astrology software calculates, such as astro.com. If the angles are incorrect due to a DST error, I provided you the ability to manually adjust the GMT offset value to calculate the correct chart.
• Due to the number of calculations needed to produce the dynamic chronological visualization, it can take several seconds to refresh and to switch between views. Please be patient.
• Due to the impact on the speed of the calculator, for now the calculator only features the activations of single planets and two planet-aspects. In a future version I’d like to make a lightweight app that produces all activations for any combination of planets.