Solar return chart calculator

Give your birth details and a year, and you get the exact instant the Sun comes back to the degree it held when you were born, the chart cast for that instant where you will be — and, if you name several places, what each of them does to that chart. Free, no account, nothing stored.

What it does, and why it is here

A solar return is not your birthday. It is the moment the Sun returns to the exact degree, minute and second of arc it occupied at your birth — and because a year is not a whole number of days, that instant drifts by about six hours each year, then jumps back when February takes a twenty-ninth day. It lands at an odd hour of the morning, and often on the day before or the day after the date on your birth certificate.

That instant cannot be looked up in a table, because it depends on your own natal Sun to a fraction of a degree. It has to be solved for: find the moment the Sun is at exactly that longitude, iterating until the error is smaller than the answer needs to be.

Then comes the second question, which is the one people actually search for. The instant is the same everywhere on Earth, but the chart is not: the rising sign and the Midheaven depend on where you are standing at that moment. That is the whole basis of travelling for a solar return — and it is only a real decision if you can see what each destination would do. So the tool takes up to five candidate places and lays them side by side.

What you fill in

• Date and time of birth and city — the natal Sun the return is measured against, and the historical time zone the birth time was written in.
• Return year — the year whose return you want. Past years work as well as future ones.
• Where you will be on your birthday — optional. Leave it empty and the return is cast at your birth place; filling it in is what people mean by travelling for a solar return.
• Compare other places — up to five cities. The return instant is identical in all of them; each one puts up a different rising sign and Midheaven, and therefore a different distribution of the same planets through the houses.
• House system — Placidus, Koch, equal or whole sign. It decides where the houses fall, so it decides most of what a return chart is read for.

What you get back

• Your return falls on — the instant, to the minute, in local time. Frequently not the date you were expecting, and that is the point.
• Where the planets stand at that instant — each body with its sign, degree and house.
• Where the houses begin — the cusps for the place you will be in, which is the half of the chart that travel changes.
• Aspects within the return, with their orbs.
• The return against your birth chart — the contacts between the two, which is how a return is usually read: not on its own, but as a year laid over the natal chart.
• The candidate places, side by side, when you named some — the same instant, the same planets, a different ascendant and Midheaven for each. This is the comparison that makes the decision, rather than casting five charts one at a time and holding them in your head.
• The next lunar returns — the monthly equivalent, when the Moon comes back to its natal degree, for the twelve smaller cycles inside the year.

What it does not do

It does not interpret the chart, and it will not tell you where to spend your birthday. It gives you the instant and the charts; which ascendant you would rather have for a year is a reading, and a matter of what you believe about the technique.

It does not keep your birth details — computed, then forgotten, never stored and never put in a link.

And it makes no claim about the technique itself. Solar returns are one school’s way of reading a year, alongside progressions and profections; the tool computes the chart accurately, which is a different thing from vouching for the method.

Why the date moves, and why the place matters

Questions

Is this calculator free?

Yes. No account, no e-mail, no limit.

Do I need my exact birth time?

For the return instant, no — it depends on the Sun’s position, which barely moves in an hour. For the return chart, yes, because the houses hang off the ascendant.

What if I do not know where I will be?

Leave the place empty and it is cast at your birth place, which is the conventional default. Then use the comparison field to look at the places you are actually considering.

Why does my return fall on a different date from last year?

Because the tropical year is 365.2422 days. Each return lands about six hours later than the last, until a leap day pulls it back.

Does the chart cover exactly a year?

From this return to the next — a tropical year, not a calendar one. Close to twelve months, never exactly.

Does travelling really change anything?

It changes the chart, which is not in dispute: a different longitude and latitude at the same instant give a different ascendant and Midheaven. Whether that changes the year is the part the technique claims and this tool does not.

Is this the same as a progressed chart?

No. A progression advances the birth chart by a symbolic rate; a solar return is a real chart for a real moment. Different techniques, different answers.

What is a lunar return?

The same idea on the Moon’s cycle: the moment it comes back to its natal degree, about every 27 days. The answer lists the ones coming up.

Sources and further reading

• Tropical year — the 365.2422 days behind the drift.
• The chart and its angles — what the ascendant and Midheaven are.
• House systems — why the choice changes the reading.