The Aspects
them a wider orb. For example, with the Sun we might
use an orb as wide as 10 degrees, while using a 9-
degree orb for the Moon, and a 7 or 8 degree orb for the
other planets. This would be when looking at a natal
chart.
If we were looking at transits (at what is happening in
the sky right now) using too wide of an orb would give
us too many transits, and the list of them would likely be
longer than our attention span. What we want are lists
of things that are manageable. Having a list of 200
aspects may be very nice, but how often are you going
to sit down and count through 200 aspects, especially
when all you want is a quick picture of what is
happening today?
So, in actual practice, we tend to limit our orbs, and the
list of aspects we use, to something manageable, to
what we will actually be able to use and find helpful in
our day-to-day work. As I like to tell myself, I want
astrological techniques that work for me, and not vice
versa. There are thousands of possible techniques you
can experiment with, but which ones give back enough
return for your investment of time to make them
valuable to you? Each of us will have to answer that
question for ourselves.