Free Tools
Deterministic astrological timing calculators.
How this calculation works
This tool compares the current sky to your birth chart. It reads all nine grahas as moving bodies, the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and the nodes Rahu and Ketu, and checks each one against eight points in your natal chart: the Ascendant, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
The aspects are Vedic graha drishti measured in degrees. Every planet casts a conjunction and a full seventh aspect, and Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn also cast their classical special aspects, the fourth and eighth for Mars, the fifth and ninth for Jupiter, and the third and tenth for Saturn. We label this system clearly and never mix in Western squares, trines, or sextiles.
For each contact within orb the tool reports the exact orb, whether it is applying or separating, the exact dates the planet perfects the aspect inside the current window, and the window itself. Slow planets that retrograde can perfect the same aspect more than once, and every exact date inside the window is listed.
One consistent set of positions
Both your natal positions and the current sky are computed from one Swiss Ephemeris sidereal path with the Lahiri ayanamsha, and your natal ascendant from Swiss Ephemeris houses. Using a single source for both ends of every angle is what makes the orbs exact, because a transit is only as accurate as the difference between two positions measured the same way.
This is a slightly different Lahiri path from the one the Moon Sign calculator uses, so if your natal Moon sits within a hair of a sign boundary the two tools can differ by a fraction of a degree. For transits, this matters far less than measuring both ends of each angle consistently, which is why this tool is built the way it is.
How the significance ranking works
Every active transit earns points from a fixed rulebook. The transiting planet contributes weight, with Saturn heaviest and the fast Moon lightest. The natal point it touches contributes weight, with the Ascendant, Moon, and Sun heaviest. The kind of aspect contributes weight, a conjunction or opposition more than a special aspect. A tight orb adds points, and an applying transit adds one more.
The points are summed into a significance score and the transits are sorted from highest to lowest. Every transit lists its own points so the total is fully auditable. A transit is called major only when the top score clears a stated threshold, and when nothing clears it the tool says so plainly rather than dressing up a minor, fast moving contact as important.
Limitations and assumptions
An accurate birth time is required, because the natal ascendant and the exact degrees of your fast natal points depend on it, and a wrong time shifts every orb. If you are unsure of your time, confirm it first with the Ascendant calculator.
This is a current transits tool. It shows what is active now, or on a date you supply through the API. It is not a long range forecast, and it does not overlay houses for your current location. Dates and times are computed in UTC.
Positions use the Lahiri ayanamsha. Practitioners who prefer another ayanamsha will see slightly different orbs and exact dates, which near an edge can change whether a contact is listed.
Methodology
Ephemeris: Swiss Ephemeris (pyswisseph 2.10.3.2), used directly for all nine grahas in sidereal mode with the Lahiri ayanamsha; the natal ascendant from Swiss Ephemeris houses. Zodiac: sidereal. Aspect system: vedara_transit_v1, degree based Vedic graha drishti, conjunction and seventh aspect for every body plus the classical special aspects of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
Orb tiers: three degrees for Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Rahu, and Ketu, two degrees for the Sun, Mercury, and Venus, and one degree for the Moon. Motion is applying when the orb is tightening and separating when it is widening. Exact passes and the influence window are found by scanning the ephemeris and refining each crossing by binary search; a window is the continuous span around the calculation moment where the orb stays within the tier.
Significance is a transparent sum of stated weights for the transiting planet, the natal point, the aspect type, the tightness of the orb, and whether the transit is applying. No language model is involved in the calculation or the ranking. The calculation_version field in the response identifies the exact engine version. The methodology URL for this tool is /tools/current-transits-calculator#methodology.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a transit?
- A transit is where a planet is in the sky right now compared to where the planets were when you were born. When a moving planet reaches an exact angle to one of your birth positions, Vedic astrology calls that a graha drishti, a planetary aspect. This tool finds those angles between the current sky and your natal chart and tells you how exact each one is.
- Which transits are included?
- All nine grahas are read as moving bodies: the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and the lunar nodes Rahu and Ketu. They are compared against eight points in your birth chart: the Ascendant, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Every body casts a conjunction and a seventh aspect, and Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn also cast their classical special aspects. This is Jyotish graha drishti measured in degrees, not Western squares, trines, or sextiles.
- What is the difference between an applying and a separating transit?
- A transit is applying when the planet is still moving toward the exact angle, so the aspect is building and the orb is getting tighter. It is separating when the exact moment has already passed and the planet is moving away, so the orb is widening. Applying transits are usually felt as gathering, and this tool gives an applying transit a small extra weight in its ranking for that reason.
- What is an orb?
- The orb is how far a transit is from being exact, measured in degrees. A small orb means the planet is very close to the perfect angle and the contact is strong. This tool uses a three tier orb: three degrees for the slow planets Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Rahu, and Ketu, two degrees for the Sun, Mercury, and Venus, and one degree for the fast Moon. Outside its orb a contact is not listed as active.
- Why can a transit occur more than once?
- Because planets retrograde. A planet can reach an exact angle, then appear to reverse and cross the same point again, and later move forward and cross a third time. Within a single influence window you may therefore see up to two exact dates, and across a full retrograde cycle a slow planet can perfect the same aspect up to three times over several months. Each time it comes within orb it appears here, with every exact date it crosses inside the current window.
- Are transits predictions?
- No. Transits describe the current planetary weather against your birth chart, not fixed events. This tool deliberately reports the technical facts, the orb, the motion, the exact dates, and a transparent score, and it does not tell you what will happen. How a transit is experienced depends on your whole chart and on your choices.
- Does my current location affect the calculation?
- Not in this version. The aspects here compare zodiac longitudes, which are the same everywhere on Earth, so your current city does not change which transits are active or their orbs. Current location only matters for house overlays, which are a separate layer that Vedara does not include in this free tool yet. You can supply a current location through the API, but it will not change the result.
- How does Vedara rank important transits?
- With a fixed, published rulebook, not an AI judgement. Each transit earns points for the transiting planet, for the natal point it touches, for the kind of aspect, for how tight the orb is, and for whether it is applying. The points are summed into a significance score and the transits are sorted from highest to lowest. Every point is listed under each transit so you can check exactly how the score was built, and a transit is called major only when it clears a stated threshold.