Fixed stars
The stars drift along the zodiac too, about a degree every seventy-two years, as the Earth’s axis slowly turns. This page places thirty bright and traditionally used stars on the zodiac of your birth or of today, and finds any that sit on your planets.
Stars on the planets
Thirty stars
Ptolemy described the bright stars by the planets whose nature they share, and later astrologers, Vivian Robson among them in 1923, kept long lists of the stars near the zodiac. The thirty here are among the brightest and most used: Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut, often called the four royal stars, with Algol, Alcyone of the Pleiades, Spica, Sirius, Arcturus and others. Precession carries every one of them forward along the zodiac at the same rate, which is why Regulus, at 29°50′ Leo in 2000, crossed into Virgo around 2012.
How the positions are worked out
Each star’s right ascension and declination for the year 2000, as given in the SIMBAD catalogue from Hipparcos measurements, is turned into ecliptic longitude and latitude with that year’s obliquity of 23.4392911°. The longitude is then carried to the date by precession of 50.29″ a year. That leaves out each star’s own slow motion, nutation and aberration, so the positions are good to about a minute of arc: Regulus, Aldebaran, Spica, Antares, Fomalhaut and Sirius all come out within a minute of their published positions for 2000. A planet or angle within 1° of a star’s longitude counts as conjunct. Latitude is not part of that test, so a star far north or south of the ecliptic is only nominally conjunct, and the page says so. Parans, which join stars and planets that rise, set or culminate together, are another method and are not used here.
Reading the result
The page opens on your birth if a chart is saved on this device, and on this minute if not. Point at a star, or tab to one, and the readout gives its name, its Bayer designation, its magnitude, its zodiac degree and how far north or south of the ecliptic it lies; the lower the magnitude, the brighter the star, so Sirius at −1.46 outshines Regulus at 1.35. Stars on the planets lists every contact within a degree, closest first, with the true distance between the two in the sky, and says when that is more than 5° and the conjunction is by longitude only. The table lists all thirty in zodiac order. Twelve points against thirty stars with a one-degree orb average about two contacts a chart, so finding none, or four, is ordinary.
A worked example
Regulus stood at 29°16′ Leo in 1960 and at 0°06′ Virgo in 2020. Somebody born in late August 1960 with the Sun at 29°00′ Leo has it 16′ from Regulus, a close contact. Somebody born in 2020 with the Sun at the same 29°00′ Leo has it 1°06′ away, just outside the orb, because in the sixty years between them the star has moved on 50′. That is why the page works the stars out for the date of birth rather than copying a table printed for one year. Regulus lies less than half a degree from the ecliptic, so the Sun really does pass close by it; Sirius, at 14° Cancer but 39° south of the ecliptic, meets a planet on its degree on paper only.
Common confusions
The stars are called fixed because they keep their places against each other, not because their zodiac degrees stand still. The tropical zodiac is measured from the spring equinox, which slides back along the stars, so a star list printed decades ago is out by a fraction of a degree or more. In the sidereal zodiac of the Vedic chart the stars stay almost where they are, and the difference between the two systems is set out on signs and stars. A star’s zodiac degree is also not its constellation: Sirius belongs to Canis Major and Canopus to Carina, whatever sign their longitudes fall in.
What it claims
The tradition reads a planet or angle on a bright star as taking on something of the star’s character, described in the planetary terms Ptolemy used: Aldebaran as like Mars, Regulus and Antares as like Mars and Jupiter, Spica as like Venus with something of Mars. It gives most weight to bright stars near the ecliptic and to close contacts. That is a description of an old practice; the positions are astronomy, and nothing on this page predicts anything.
Where it fits
The tradition reads a star contact alongside the planet’s sign, house and aspects in the birth chart, not on its own. What each planet stands for is under the planets, meetings between the planets themselves are on conjunctions, and antiscia are another old way of finding links between degrees.
Questions people ask
What are fixed stars in astrology?
They are the stars proper, as against the planets, which the Greeks called wandering stars. A few dozen bright stars near the zodiac have been used since Ptolemy, who described each one by the planets whose nature it was said to share. A planet or angle at the same zodiac degree as a bright star is read as taking on something of that star’s character. This page places thirty of them on the zodiac of any date.
Why do fixed star positions change over time?
The zodiac most Western astrologers use is measured from the spring equinox, and the equinox slides slowly backwards against the stars as the Earth’s axis turns, once in about 25,800 years. Measured from that moving starting point, every star’s longitude grows by about 50 seconds of arc a year, or 1° in 72 years. The stars also move very slightly on their own, which this page leaves out as too small to matter within a one-degree orb.
Where is Regulus in the zodiac now?
Regulus, Alpha Leonis, stood at about 29°50′ Leo in 2000 and crossed into Virgo in 2012. In 2026 it is at about 0°12′ Virgo, and it moves on a minute of arc roughly every fourteen months. It lies less than half a degree north of the ecliptic, so the Sun passes almost over it each year, around 23 August. It is one of the four stars often called royal, with Aldebaran, Antares and Fomalhaut.
What orb is used for fixed star conjunctions?
Astrologers who use fixed stars disagree: some allow more for the brightest stars, and others keep every contact within about a degree. This page counts a planet or angle within 1° of a star’s longitude. It also gives the real distance between the two in the sky, because a star far north or south of the ecliptic can share a planet’s zodiac degree while standing tens of degrees away from it.