Ephemeris tables
Where the planets stood on any day between 1900 and 2200. Sign, degree and retrograde motion, a row per day, computed for 00:00 UTC.
How to read a table like this
Every row is a day and every column is a body. A cell says which sign the planet was in and how far through it, so ♌ 12°34′ means twelve and a half degrees into Leo. Signs are thirty degrees wide, which is why a number never goes past 29°59′.
Reading down a column shows speed. The Moon covers twelve to fifteen degrees a day and changes sign every two or three; Pluto shifts a few arc minutes in a week and can spend fifteen years in one sign. That difference is the whole reason astrologers separate fast planets from slow ones.
The days worth noticing are the ones where a column changes sign, and the ones where the ℞ appears or disappears. A planet standing still before it turns is doing the same degree for days on end, which reads as a stuck fortnight to anyone with a natal planet on that spot.
What a table cannot tell you
An ephemeris is the same for everyone alive. It has no houses, because houses need a place and a time of day, and no angles, for the same reason. Two people born on one date with the same table in front of them have different charts.
So a table is where the work starts rather than where it ends. If you want the sky as it stood over one town at one minute, that is the birth chart calculator; if you want to know what today is doing to a chart already built, that is transits.
Questions
What is an ephemeris?+
A table of where the planets are, day by day: which sign each one is in, how far through that sign, and whether it is moving forwards or backwards. Astrologers use them to build charts and follow transits; navigators and astronomers used them first, and for the same reason — you cannot work with the sky without knowing where things stand.
What moment of the day is a row?+
Midnight, 00:00 UTC. The choice of hour barely shows up except on the Moon, which covers about half a degree an hour, so if you compare a figure with a table from somewhere else it is worth checking which moment that one uses. For a chart of a particular person the exact time matters, and the calculator asks for it.
What does ℞ mean?+
Retrograde: the planet appears to move backwards against the stars, which happens when the Earth overtakes it or is overtaken. Nothing physically reverses. The Sun and the Moon never do it, so those two columns never carry the symbol.
How far back and forward do the tables go?+
1900 to 2200. That covers any birth date anyone reading this is likely to have, and enough of the future for planning. The engine is Swiss Ephemeris, the same one professional astrology software runs on.
Is there a catch?+
No account, no email, no paywall on the tables. What we sell is the written reading of a particular chart, which is a different thing from a table of coordinates.