posted December 04, 2014 09:22 PM            

I am not sure how many of you are into parallels of declination so I'm going out on a limb here.

Anyway, for those who know about parallels/contra parallels in declination, I'm getting more familiar with them and was referred to a book by Robert Hand, Horoscope Symbols, where he outlines a way (given by Charles Jayne originally, he says) to determine the orb between 2 planets in declination by "changing the orb of a parallel according to it's longitude".

Like Hand, I've wondered what an orb of 1 or 2 degrees in declination really comes out to in longitude. Like what is the longitude ("regular") orb of say, Moon at 18* N declination and Saturn at 20* N declination. Is it 4 degrees, is it 8 degrees, is it more like 10?

Depending on what orbs you prefer to use, a planet that seems to be too wide to be a parallel (the common rule usually is up to 2* but more like 1*) could very well be in orb.

He says that you could use an ephemeris that shows the solar longitudes for each declination but since that would be very time consuming, he's added a table (on page 119) that makes it easier, labeled "Solar Longitudes Equivalent to Given Declinations".

He tells you how to do it. It's easy, just take the 2 planets that you want to find the orb in declination for, find the declinations in one column, then find the equivalent longitudes and count the degrees between the 2 equivalent longitudes.

Once I did this for all of the possible parallels in my family's natal charts, I realized many of them were in orb. The above example of the Moon and Saturn came out to be a bit more than 8 degrees. So I'd say that the Moon at 18* N declination and Saturn at 20* declination was in orb of a parallel. But not all planets that are 2* apart in declination are 8* apart in longitude. It varies.

Robert Hand agrees with this method and I must admit once I looked at my family's and friends' charts, the blanks were truly filled in.

It seems like a great way to eliminate the guesswork when deciding if 2 planets are parallel. I'd be interested in your opinions of declinations whether you are curious about orbs or not. It just seems like this gold nugget from Robert Hand seems to have been overlooked, or just not talked about.