An astrocartography map answers a spatial question: where in the world do your natal planets sit on the angles? Once a city is on your shortlist, a second question arrives quickly. Is now a sensible time to test it, or would next spring be better? That is a timing question, and a map drawn for your birth moment cannot answer it on its own.
Transits are the usual astrological tool for timing. They compare where the planets are on a chosen date with where they were when you were born. The transit chart calculator does this for any date, plots a 12-month timeline for the slow planets, and can add a city so you see transits to that place's relocated angles. This guide explains how to read the result without turning it into a forecast.
A year of transits in 14 seconds
Slow planets move around the outer ring; a line appears whenever one comes within orb of a natal planet or angle.
What a transit chart compares
Your natal chart is fixed. The planets in the sky are not. When transiting Saturn reaches the same degree as your natal Venus, astrologers call that a Saturn–Venus conjunction by transit. When it is 90° away, it is a square; 120° is a trine, and so on.
Two numbers make a transit readable. The orb is how far the contact is from exact; the calculator uses 3° for conjunctions and oppositions, 2.5° for squares, 2° for trines and 1.5° for sextiles, which is tighter than natal practice because a transit happens in time. Applying means the planet is moving towards exact; separating means it has passed.
If you want to see today's sky before you bring your own chart into it, planetary positions today shows every planet's sign and degree and where today's sky crosses the map.
Read slow transits first
Not every transit deserves the same attention. A fast planet crosses a 3° orb in days; a slow one can stay for months. The difference is large enough that reading them on the same scale gives a misleading picture.
Fast and slow transits run on different clocks
Average days a planet stays within 3° of the same chart point on one pass.
That is why the calculator separates fast and slow contacts, and why the timeline only plots Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Slow transits describe the background of a season. Fast ones are useful when you are choosing a specific day, for example to sign a lease, and much less useful for deciding whether a whole year is a good time to relocate. The Moon is left out entirely, because it moves through every orb used here in less than a day.
Why one transit can be exact twice
Slow planets spend part of each year in apparent retrograde motion. Seen from Earth, they slow, move backwards, stop and move forwards again. If that loop happens near one of your natal points, the same transit can become exact more than once.
One transit, two exact dates
Distance between transiting Saturn and natal Venus, measured weekly.
Sample chart, natal Venus 9°42′ Aries. Engine output: in orb from 5 Oct 2026 to 25 Feb 2027, exact on 25 Oct and 24 Jan.
In this sample chart, Saturn reaches natal Venus in late October 2026, drifts back while it slows and turns direct in December, then returns to exact in late January 2027. The engine reports a single window from 5 October to 25 February with two exact dates. Reading only one date, or only the first pass, would miss most of the episode.
Add the city: transits to relocated angles
Planetary positions are the same everywhere on Earth. The Ascendant and Midheaven are not: they depend on where the chart is cast. A relocation chart keeps your birth moment fixed and recalculates those angles for another place. Transits to those relocated angles are the timing side of astrocartography.
Same year, three cities
Planet positions do not change with location; the Ascendant and Midheaven do. These are slow transits to each city’s angles for one birth chart.
The worked example uses one birth chart and three cities. Beijing is the birthplace. Shanghai sits about five degrees of longitude further east, so its Midheaven is about five degrees further along the zodiac; Saturn therefore reaches it weeks later. Lisbon is a long-distance move with completely different angles, and Saturn never conjoins its Midheaven during the same year.
None of this says Shanghai is better in summer or Lisbon is better in March. It shows something more modest and more useful: the same year can be emphasised differently depending on where you stand, and nearby cities share much of their timing while distant ones do not. That matches how a map line works too: the distance from a line matters, and a few hundred kilometres changes less than a continent.
Turn a window into a small test
A transit window is most helpful when it shapes what you do next, rather than what you believe about the future. If a slow transit to a city's angles falls next spring, that can be a reasonable time to visit, talk to employers, or rent short-term and see how ordinary weeks feel. If the timing and your practical evidence point in different directions, the practical evidence wins.
Four steps to use a transit chart well
1Check the date
Start with today, then try the date of a planned move, interview or lease signing.
2Read slow first
Jupiter to Pluto set the background for months; fast planets add days of colour.
3Add the city
See whether the slow contacts land on the angles of the place you are weighing.
4Test in real life
Use the window for a trial stay or review, and keep the decision grounded in evidence.
Keep the limits visible
Transits depend on accurate inputs. Planet-to-planet transits are robust even without a birth time, but transits to the Ascendant, Midheaven and houses are not; if your time is approximate, read how to use astrocartography without a birth time and treat angle transits as provisional. Exact dates in the calculator are to the day, not the minute.
Astrology is a symbolic practice, not a validated predictive method. A hard transit does not mean a bad period, and a soft one does not guarantee an easy one. Use the timeline to choose when to ask better questions, and make relocation decisions with the same care you would give any major move: money, work, legal status, health, and the people you would live near.
The short version: check the date, read slow planets first, add the city you are weighing, and use the window for a real-world test.