A birth chart forecast describes what the sky is doing to you. A relationship forecast describes what it is doing to the two of you together, and that is a different question. On the same day one person can have a splendid transit and the other a tiring one, while the relationship itself is having a perfectly ordinary day. Or the reverse: both people feel fine, and somehow the evening still turns into a long discussion about whose turn it was to buy bread.

Our relationship forecast takes one day, today or any date you choose, and reads the planets of that day against the chart of the relationship itself.

First, the composite chart

Two people have two birth charts. The composite chart is a third chart built from them: for each planet, it takes the midpoint between the two positions. If one person has the Sun at 10 degrees Aries and the other at 10 degrees Gemini, the composite Sun sits halfway between them, at 10 degrees Taurus. Do that for every planet and for the Ascendant, and you have one chart that belongs to neither person and to both.

Astrologers read it as the chart of the relationship as a thing in its own right: what the pair are like as a unit, what they do well together, where they tend to get stuck. Two friends, two business partners, a parent and an adult child, or two people in love each have a composite of their own, and it can describe the pair quite differently from either person on their own. Plenty of quiet people form a lively composite, which surprises nobody more than them.

A forecast for the composite is then simply this: the planets of the chosen day, measured against that relationship chart. A transit to it describes something happening to the pair rather than to either person separately.

The first question: how fast is the planet?

The first thing to ask of any transit is how fast the transiting planet moves, because that sets how long the thing it describes will last.

Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto on a point of the composite describe a season the two of you are living through. It lasts months, and it cannot be hurried. Saturn on the composite Sun can be the year a pair take on something serious together: a move, a shared responsibility, a commitment that changes the routine.

The Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars describe a few days or a week. Venus on the composite Moon is a stretch when being together feels easy and affectionate. Mars on the same point is a stretch when small things are said more sharply than meant.

The Moon describes an afternoon. A Moon transit is the discussion about the bread: real at the time, forgotten by dinner.

The same aspect from two of those planets is not the same event. Reading a Moon square as though it were a Saturn square is the commonest mistake in transit astrology, and it is how perfectly good afternoons get treated as turning points.

The second question: what is being touched?

Then ask which point of the composite the transit lands on. A transit to the composite Sun touches what the relationship is for. To the composite Moon, how it feels day to day. To composite Venus, affection, pleasure and what the pair value, including money. To composite Mars, drive, initiative and friction.

Jupiter crossing the composite Venus might be a generous stretch, with more invitations, more spending, and more agreement about how to spend it. Uranus opposite the composite Moon might be a season when the household routine keeps getting interrupted, and the pair discover how much of their comfort depended on it.

The third question: how close is it?

Orb is the distance from exact, and it works like a volume control. A transit within a degree of exact is the loud one. Exactness is also timing: a slow planet within a degree today will be exact within weeks, which is usually when the thing it describes actually arrives.

What the report shows for the day

The report is laid out in tabs, all of them for the two people and the date you chose.

Areas of mutual attraction scores how the day's sky colours the bond in several areas of shared life: friendship, romance, the spiritual side, working together and ideas. Each area gets a score out of ten, a plain label for where that score falls, and an explanation of which placements produced it. Two colleagues might see working together light up on the day of a deadline; two old friends might see friendship stay steady while ideas are suddenly the lively area.

Harmonic relationship qualities lists the qualities the day supports for the pair, and difficult relationship qualities lists the ones it strains. Each comes with a score and the reasons behind it, so you can see which transit is doing the work.

Planet positions and aspects shows the chart itself: a wheel with the composite inside and the sky of the chosen day outside, and a grid of the aspects between the two. This is the tab to open if you want to check the three questions above for yourself.

Choosing the date

The report opens on today. Registered members can choose any other date: a day in the past for something that already happened, the day the two of you met, or a day ahead that is being planned. Visitors without an account get today's forecast.

A forecast for a single day catches whatever is passing. If you want to watch a slow contact arrive, become exact and move on, there is also a monthly relationship forecast, which reads a whole month at once.

A note about the houses

The composite has no sky of its own, so its houses are equal divisions from a midpoint Ascendant rather than the houses of a real horizon. That means "Saturn is crossing the composite seventh house" carries less weight than it sounds. Read the composite houses more lightly than you would in a birth chart. For house transits with real angles behind them, read the same day against a Davison chart, which is cast for a real moment over a real place.

Birth times

Both birth times matter. Without them, the composite planets are still reliable, so the aspects stand. But the composite Ascendant and its houses are unavailable, and the composite Moon can be out by a degree or two, which is enough to move a fast planet's transit to it by a day or more.

A quiet day is a real answer

Some days nothing in the sky is close to the composite, and the scores sit in the middle. That is not a fault. A forecast that always finds something exciting is a forecast with its orbs set too wide.

And a transit says what a day is asking of two people, not what will happen to them. A hard transit is not a warning, and an easy one is not a promise. Two people who know what kind of day they are in are simply better placed than two who are surprised by it.

When you are ready, read the relationship forecast for the two of you here.

Frequently asked questions

What is a relationship forecast?
The transits of a chosen day to the composite chart of two people: the sky read against the relationship's own chart rather than against either person's birth chart.

What is a composite chart?
A chart made from the midpoints of two birth charts, planet by planet. It stands for the relationship as a unit, and it works for any pair: partners, friends, family, colleagues.

Can I choose any date?
Yes, as a registered member: the report opens on today, and any other date, past or future, can be chosen. Visitors without an account see today.

Which transits are the important ones?
The tightest first, then the slowest. A Saturn or Pluto contact within a degree is a season the pair are in; a Moon contact at the same orb is that afternoon.

Do we both need a known birth time?
For the planets and their aspects, no. For the composite Ascendant and houses, yes, and the composite Moon is more precise with both times.

Should we read this or the transits to a Davison chart?
Both, knowing the difference. The composite is the relationship as an idea and is the more familiar reading. The Davison is a real moment over a real place, so its houses and angles are ones a transit genuinely crosses.