Planetary Positions

This page gives the geocentric (earth-centered) positions of the Sun, Moon and the planets. A list of astrological conjunctions is attached. The right ascension is correct to within a couple of minutes. Some of the declinations have reversed signs; this is a known bug (however these are not used in conventional astrology). The position of Pluto will be off by a bit more than the other planets, but accurate to within a degree or two. The algorithm does not take into account interplanetary gravitational interactions; it uses the current orbital characteristics of each planet and interpolates from a known set of values. Hence, the further back or forward in time you set the date to, the less accurate the positions will be; they will be more accurate the closer they are to 1 January 1980. This algorithm does not take into account the precession of the equinox.

This page defaults to the current local time, but you can also set other values for the date and time using the form at the bottom of this page. The entered time must be Greenwich Mean Time. Note that you can set a value B.C.E. by using negative numbers in the year field. Dates prior to 15 October 1582 are considered be Julian, after that, Gregorian. Since not all countries (e.g. Russia) changed their calendar on exactly that date, you may need to adjust historical dates accordingly.