Osservazione Cosmica 3D

What you are looking at

Geometry slider

At 0 % the bodies are where they really are. At 100 % they all lie on a sphere around the origin: direction stays, distance is gone. The angles between bodies do not change — which is why a horoscope works without knowing distances.

Origin

From the Sun you see the orbits. From the Earth you see what astrology describes. The barycentre is the centre of mass of the Solar System — the Sun orbits it, and at times it lies outside the solar surface.

Axis

The line through the centre is perpendicular to the ecliptic and marks the chosen origin — with Earth as origin, the observer’s own position, which is hidden as a body. It is a visual aid for height and depth, not a physical axis: Earth’s rotational axis is tilted 23.4° against it.

Vectors

Gravity is the full acceleration g = GM/r² at the observer. Tidal is the differential part across the body — only that part does anything locally. The ranking differs: the Sun dominates the full field, the Moon the tidal one.

Outgoing turns the question around: how strongly does the origin act at the other body? Same formula, with the origin’s GM. The arrow therefore sits out there at the body and points back — a field acts where its target is, not where its source is.

The two directions are strongly asymmetric, by exactly the mass ratio: Earth accelerates Uranus with only 6.9 % of what Uranus does to Earth; for the Sun it is 0.0003 %. Distance cancels out — the asymmetry is about mass, not range. The out/in column shows that ratio.

Force is the only quantity that is genuinely mutual: by Newton’s third law it is exactly equal in both directions. That is why both arrows have the same length in this mode. Ask about exchange and reciprocity and you must look at force; ask about effect and you must look at acceleration. In receiving, Earth is almost purely an object; in radiating, almost invisible — and in force, an equal partner. That is not an interpretation, it is arithmetic.

Eleven orders of magnitude separate the Sun from Pluto. Linearly only one arrow would show, so order of magnitude is the default. Force spreads less, so its scale is tighter. The table always gives the true numbers.

Accuracy

Orbits come from the JPL Keplerian elements (Standish), valid 1800–2050, accurate to arcminutes. The Moon is good to about ten arcminutes. That is enough for display; readings still use the precise ephemeris.

The following section describes the astrology layer. It belongs to the Pro plan: the zodiac ring with three systems and a selectable starting point, the zodiac column in the table and the cross-check against the Swiss Ephemeris. Everything else on this page – orbits, geometry slider, vectors, readings and space weather – is free and stays free.

Astrology layer

The ring is drawn softly on purpose: it is not a part of the Solar System but a grid people lay over the sky. Only the boundaries are sharp, because that is where it is decided which sign a body is in. The short uprights at the boundaries show that a planet crosses a surface, not merely a line.

Three zodiacs, the same ones the calculator uses: western (tropical, zero is the vernal point of the date), vedic (sidereal, twelve equal signs, shifted back by the ayanamsa) and true constellations (IAU boundaries, unequal, including Ophiuchus). For the sidereal systems the starting point is selectable — it is a convention, not a measurement, and the ring visibly turns with it. The planets stay put: they do not change, only the grid does.

The ayanamsa comes from the same Swiss Ephemeris the calculator uses. The Δ Swiss Eph. column openly shows how far this page’s fast computation deviates from it, in arcminutes, with Earth as origin.

Measuring angles: classically aspects are taken by ecliptic longitude only, latitude is dropped. The Moon reaches 5°, Pluto 17° off the ecliptic — in space the angle is then a different one. Both readings are offered so the difference stays visible instead of hidden.