Spherical Astrology
In Practice:
Oprah Winfrey
Copyright © 2006 by Lance Carlyle Carter

   The following is an analysis of the differences that are found in Oprah Winfrey's astrology chart from a spherical perspective vs. using only longitudes in aspect calculations.
   Spherical astrology uses spherical trigonometry to determine the three-dimensional relationships between the celestial bodies, including the Sun, Moon, planets, asteroids and stars as stated earlier. 

Table 1: Using celestial Longitude and Latitude to calculate spherical angles.

  The table below shows the spherical angles between planets in Oprah's horoscope. This table uses celestial longitude and latitude to calculate the spherical and longitudinal angles. The declination and right ascension calculations are presented below the first table.

SPHERICAL  ANGLES  CALCULATOR  © 2006 Lance Carlyle Carter  "A New Degree of Precision" 

The Site to Site column lists the Site to Site designation.

The next two columns list the site names.

The Spherical Angle column lists the spherical angle using spherical trigonometry.

The Longitude Only column lists the angle along the ecliptic.

The Difference column lists the difference between the spherical angle and the longitude only angle.

Click this LINK to download the EXCEL spreadsheet that calculates spherical angles. (Password required is "arc", but it contains Macros that your computer may not want to run, but which convert the Degrees, Minutes and Seconds to decimal form and back again. My sample data is already inserted in the spreadsheet. Simply enter values in the ENTRY area and cut and paste them into the Blue area, or type in the values. The format has to be exactly as shown or the calculations will be wrong.)

   Notice from the table  that Oprah's Sun-Venus conjunction by Longitude is only 0° 00' 57" but the Spherical Angle is  1° 10' 00" and the difference between those values is 1° 9' 3" indicating that the very close conjunction indicated by Longitude alone is FALSE by over 1 degree. If the angle were actually within 1' of a conjunction it would qualify as a "Cazimi" aspect, but the actual spherical angle is 1° 10' 10" which is a "Combust" aspect. Although both are conjunction aspects, using spherical calculations changes the nature of the aspect and the interpretation. Maybe the orbs of combust and Cazimi should be changed if using spherical aspects. 

   For most cases the longitude angle alone is very close to the spherical angle, but when a planet is off the ecliptic by  a degree or two, the spherical angle becomes more accurate. Pluto and the asteroids Chiron, Ceres and Juno present the most variation because they aren't on the ecliptic in this chart.

Table 2: Using Right Ascension and Declination to calculate spherical angles.

   This table uses celestial declination and right ascension to calculate the spherical angles.

   I found about as much as a 1-2 minute difference between using Longitude and Latitude vs. using RA and Declination, possibly because I didn't have good enough values for the RA of the planets.