Method

What Orrery computes, and what it doesn’t

Orrery uses the conventions below to calculate positions and rank times. Other astrological methods can give different rankings. The scores express these choices; they are not probabilities or validated measures of how a decision will turn out.

Where the positions come from

The Kairos engine reads JPL’s DE440s ephemeris with Skyfield to calculate apparent geocentric positions against the ecliptic of date. Accurate planetary positions do not establish that astrological timing improves outcomes.

The choices

• Tropical zodiac, not sidereal.
• The five Ptolemaic aspects — conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition. No quincunxes, no harmonics.
• Void-of-course, modern definition: from the Moon’s last exact aspect to any body from the Sun through Pluto, until it changes sign. If it perfects no aspect at all in a sign, that whole transit is void. Definitions that count only the seven classical planets can produce different intervals.
• Mercury retrograde, station to station. No shadow periods.
• Whole Sign houses, cast for the moment — not for your birth, and not Placidus. See below.

These conventions are fixed across Orrery. When checking a condition against another source, use the same zodiac, aspect definitions, timezone, and void-of-course convention.

Which houses Orrery computes

Electional houses are calculated for the decision time and your current city. They can affect the sky-only score. Houses in your birth chart belong to the unscored personal layer and require an exact birth time.

Without an exact birth time, Orrery withholds birth-chart houses. The Moon-to-natal-planet comparison may still be available with a birth date and city. Electional houses need no birth data.

Electional houses add variation within a day. Orrery samples them hourly; the displayed boundaries follow that hourly grid. Birth-chart houses are fixed, so the Moon moves through them over days. Neither calculation accounts for your working hours or another person’s availability.

Orrery reports your birth chart’s rising sign only when it is stable across the plausible birth-time and city range. It computes no Midheaven and does not report the rising degree of a decision moment. House labels describe topics in Orrery’s rules, such as agreements for the 7th house and communication for the 3rd; they are not character assessments.

What your birth details are for

Birth details never add or subtract points. The public best-time pages also compute scores without birth data. See Privacy for what the app stores.

With a birth date and city, Orrery compares the Moon’s aspects to one natal planet across the sky-ranked windows. It may move a window up or down, or withhold a personal recommendation when no window passes. Each change lists its conditions. Shared links keep the timezone-only sky ranking.

These are Orrery’s chosen conventions, not a comprehensive account of electional traditions. The comparison makes no claim about what a birth chart promises for future outcomes.

To restore your app setup on another device, request a one-time link at your setup’s email address. The link expires after 15 minutes and requires confirmation. Birth details are not used for recovery. See app Privacy.

The concierge Founding Moment Charter uses a separate calculator:

• Birth date— identifies the birth day used to calculate the target planet’s position.
• Birth city or region — resolves the birth timezone. The Charter calculator does not look up coordinates or use houses.
• Birth time, if you know it — narrows the calculation. Without it, the calculator checks the whole birth day and withholds a personal result if the comparison changes.

Charter birth details never enter Orrery’s database: they stay in your browser until you choose to send them. Under the current policy, Orrery deletes those details and derived calculator output within seven days of delivery. Other intake and working files have separate retention periods; earlier reservations keep the notice in effect when they were made. See Charter Privacy for the full terms.

What the score means

Each hour starts at 50. Active rules add or subtract points. The result is rounded to the nearest integer, with exact halves rounded to the nearest even integer, and limited to 0–100. The 0–100 limit does not make this a grade or a shared scale of quality. Orrery displays these numbers as rule points.

Compare times for the same activity and setup. Activities have different weights and ranges: Week overall can never exceed 53 points under the current rules. A low-looking number can still be the best available this week. A difference of four points has no established meaning for real-world outcomes.

The weights are initial judgments chosen for Orrery, not values calibrated against decision outcomes. Higher scores mean more favorable conditions under these rules, not better odds of success. A factor active all week can lower every score without helping distinguish the available hours.

All factors are sampled at the start of each hour. Conditions can change before that hour ends, so listed ranges are hourly approximations, not continuously checked intervals. Check the exact condition times before choosing a start. Phase rows show scored hours rather than exact phase transitions.

Daily points average the unrounded hourly totals before rounding and limiting to 0–100. They can therefore differ from an average of the displayed, already rounded and limited hourly points.

How windows are selected

Orrery finds the best eligible hourly score, then chooses the longest continuous stretch whose hours are each within 5 points of it. Equal-length stretches favor the earlier start.

A search starting today uses complete hourly samples starting at or after the request time. It selects and averages the published hourly points, which are already rounded and limited to 0–100.

Searches starting on a later date select and average the raw hourly totals, before hourly rounding or the 0–100 limit. Calendar views without a selection cutoff use the same approach. A shared link with a fixed cutoff replays the published-hour selection at that cutoff. Both approaches round the window average to the nearest integer, with exact halves to even, and limit it to 0–100.

This favors a longer choice of start times over the single highest score. A shorter alternative can score higher than the recommended window. Ranges end at the stated closing time; that instant belongs to the next hour. Overnight hours are eligible, and the calculation does not account for deadlines or anyone’s availability.

Alternatives use the same longest-stretch rule within each local day not touched by the main sky window. A window ending exactly at midnight does not exclude the following day. Orrery keeps up to two alternatives, ordered by their rounded average points, earlier first on a tie. They are separate-day options, not the next two highest-scoring individual hours.

The optional birth-chart comparison can reorder or exclude these sky-selected windows without changing their points. Saved outlooks retain their original dates, scores, setup, and rules. The current reference below does not recalculate or replace older snapshots.

Current numeric rules

Rule configuration version 3. Expand an activity to see every weight in points. Inactive factors contribute zero. The additive upper bounds combine the largest permitted additions; they do not guarantee that all those conditions can occur together. Week overall’s 53-point ceiling applies with or without a location.

Check the work

The result lists the conditions used in each score. The optional explanation selects from server-written statements whose dates, times, and scores come from those calculations. Responses that change a statement or its cited condition are withheld. This check verifies the selected text against Orrery’s data; it does not validate astrological interpretations. See also Terms.