Sky & astrology almanacs

Three more almanacs — named, coloured layers of commitments, like separate calendars — come with the app:

• "celestial" — the sky's own events
• "astrology · western" — the tropical zodiac
• "astrology · vedic" — the sidereal zodiac, by the Lahiri ayanamsa

All three are ordinary almanacs holding their own commitments. They are saved, counted, backed up, exported and synced like any other. Nothing about them is worked out afresh while the app runs.

#"celestial"

"celestial" is on when the app is new. It holds:

• Moon phases: "new moon" and "full moon" — only those two
• Eclipses: "solar eclipse", "lunar eclipse" and "penumbral lunar eclipse"
• Seasons: "march equinox", "june solstice", "september equinox" and "december solstice" — named by month so they read right in both hemispheres
• Meteor-shower peaks, every year on a fixed date:

Its mark is "☾", the crescent moon. It never rings.

#The two astrology almanacs

Both are asked about on "your starting sky", the first page of a fresh install, as "western" and "vedic", and both start switched off. Switch on the one you follow, or both, and it starts lit in the binder — the screen that holds all your almanacs. Leave one off and it starts in the archive, the binder's shelf for almanacs kept off the calendar; from there you can unlock it, put it back and shine it later. See The shelves — binder, archive & pyre.

"celestial" is not on that page. It is always there and always lit.

They are two almanacs, not one with a switch, because they are two readings of the same sky. They sit about 24 degrees apart — roughly three weeks of dates. Turning both on for someone who follows neither would mean about eighty entries a year contradicting each other.

Each holds:

• the sun and the planets, from mercury to pluto, entering each sign — "the sun enters aquarius", "mercury enters sagittarius"
• each planet turning — "‹planet› goes retrograde" and "‹planet› goes direct"

Neither has moon entries, rahu or ketu.

Their marks name what each system is measured from — the one real difference between them:

• western wears "♈", the Aries point, which is the spring equinox rather than a star
• vedic wears "✦", a four-pointed star, for the fixed stars it is measured against

#A moment, shown on its day

Each moon phase, eclipse, equinox, solstice, sign change and planet turn is kept as its exact moment. It is drawn as an all-day entry on the day that moment falls where your phone is. Its exact time is on its own page — see A commitment's page. The meteor showers are yearly repeats on fixed dates.

#Recorded 2026 to 2045

All three are recorded from 2026 through 2045. Each almanac's description ends "recorded 2026–2045".

• celestial — worked out once before the app shipped, and checked against the US Naval Observatory and NASA to within a few minutes.
• astrology · western — checked the same way against the JPL tables and published tables of when planets turn.
• astrology · vedic — names the Lahiri ayanamsa.

Each entry is the same on every phone, so a page or a link that names one always finds it.

#Because they ship with the app

• They arrive locked. Unlock one and it is an ordinary almanac. See The lock.
• They are free. None counts toward the three almanacs you can make for free.
• They start out of the almanac fan on the year, so their entries stay on the year's ring instead of swinging in. See Edit an almanac.

Like every almanac, each is drawn as one body a day on the year, in its own belt, set by its place in the binder. See The binder.

#The moon you see is not this almanac

The moon drawn on the year, the week and the month, the phase named under the week, and phase names such as "waxing crescent" are all worked out from the date as they are drawn. They never come from "celestial". Eclipsing "celestial" does not take the moon off the calendar.

#See also.

Holiday almanacs · What an almanac is · The lock · The sky