Aspects and Latitude

Minderwiz

Yesterday, whilst doing some research for a post in the 'Southern Hemisphere' thread I came across the following statement;

'Modern experience shows that Pluto makes conjunctions with 17° of Latitude when tradition would rule out even a platick [within orb] aspect' (Square brackets mine)

Pursuing Dave's comment on the aspect between Saturn and Pluto in Camilla's chart I actually checked the latitude difference (6 degrees) and then on impulse Googled latitude of Pluto:

'if you see Sun at 0 Cancer and Pluto at 8 Cancer NOT
shown as conjunct, this is because the Latitude of Pluto has PUSHED the
separation between the two beyond the +/- 10 degrees of ORB allocated to
the Conjunction.'

From some comments on the program Asterpro

Which obviously contradicts the first statement

and then Last night as I settled down to read Morin on Transits, I came across the following statement:

'...if Mars with southern latitude of 3 degrees transits the opposition to the Moon with a northern latitude of 5 degrees such a transit will hold little of virtue [effect] and to one that is beyond the orb...there is no noticable virtue'. Square brackets mine

Now the same thing coming up three times in about an hour made me stop and think. I too go by longitudinal proximity when dealing with aspects and generally don't look at latitude.

The first statement basically says that a two dimensional approach is fine. The second two remind us that we live in a three dimensional universe. I wonder if anyone here actually adjusts their aspects to allow for latitude?
 

Bernice

Ooops........no!
I think this is an important point that has been overlooked (ignored) by too much emphasis on other factors. So.... if we weed out these (possibly invalid) contacts I wonder if our interpretations will suffer - or be sharper?

(I have taken paralles into account though.)

Bee :)
 

dadsnook2000

That's why . . .

That's why some programs are now offering charts in right ascension, so that we can see the actual rising/setting "conjunctions." Davd
 

Minderwiz

Interesting, and looks a good development

Many of the rest do provide tabular versions planetary positions which provide the necessary data but it's not as good as looking at a chart - at least not for me.

Applying some statistical stuff we should calculate the actual 3D orb as :

square root (longitudanal seperation squared x latitudanal separation squared)

but that's not something we would naturally do.
 

Cartomancer

Minderwiz said:
Yesterday, whilst doing some research for a post in the 'Southern Hemisphere' thread I came across the following statement;

'Modern experience shows that Pluto makes conjunctions with 17° of Latitude when tradition would rule out even a platick [within orb] aspect' (Square brackets mine)

Pursuing Dave's comment on the aspect between Saturn and Pluto in Camilla's chart I actually checked the latitude difference (6 degrees) and then on impulse Googled latitude of Pluto:

'if you see Sun at 0 Cancer and Pluto at 8 Cancer NOT
shown as conjunct, this is because the Latitude of Pluto has PUSHED the
separation between the two beyond the +/- 10 degrees of ORB allocated to
the Conjunction.'

From some comments on the program Asterpro

Which obviously contradicts the first statement

and then Last night as I settled down to read Morin on Transits, I came across the following statement:

'...if Mars with southern latitude of 3 degrees transits the opposition to the Moon with a northern latitude of 5 degrees such a transit will hold little of virtue [effect] and to one that is beyond the orb...there is no noticable virtue'. Square brackets mine

Now the same thing coming up three times in about an hour made me stop and think. I too go by longitudinal proximity when dealing with aspects and generally don't look at latitude.

The first statement basically says that a two dimensional approach is fine. The second two remind us that we live in a three dimensional universe. I wonder if anyone here actually adjusts their aspects to allow for latitude?
Click to expand...

Minderwiz,
Solar Fire by Astrolabe does a good job of computing 3D aspects if it is set up right.

Consider that Ptolemy in his Tetrabiblos says this about planetary latitudes and the conjunction aspect, "... a relation is taken to exist whether it happens by bodily conjunction or through one of the traditional aspects, except that with respect to the bodily applications and separations of the heavenly bodies it is of use also to observe their latitudes, in order that only those passages may be accepted which are found to be on the same side of the ecliptic." - Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, trans. F.E. Robbins (Loeb Classical Library), 115.

In my book, "Planetary Patterns and High Focus Planets in Spherical Astrology", I show how 3D aspects work. When two planets are in conjunction by longitude at zero degrees Aries for instance, to be in exact conjunction they would have to have the same degree of latitude. (The same goes for those using Right Ascension and Declination: Both planets must have the same degree of Right Ascension and Declination.) For two planets to be in opposition then they must have opposing latitudes. For instance, if one planet was at zero degrees Aries and was 5 degrees North latitude, then a planet in exact opposition would be at zero degrees Libra and 5 degrees South latitude.

Using 3D or so-called spherical angles because they are based on spherical trigonometry is useful in natal readings, transits, synastry, and other astrological disciplines. 3D aspects show if aspects are within orb or out of the ballpark. - Lance C.
 

Minderwiz

Hi Lance, Welcome to the Astrology forum :)

You make an excellent point and I've seen similar but not as clear statements in other Hellenistic authors, so it seems to have been a little more common then. I now pay much more attention to latitude in considering important aspects
 
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