Average Daily Motion of Planets in Horary

Horary astrologers often take note of how fast a significator in traveling per day to evaluate the outcome of horary charts.  There has been some confusion in the literature about exactly how to judge the daily speed of planets.  Do we judge speed differently if the planet is traveling direct or retrograde?  Do we use average geocentric values in which the Sun, Mercury and Venus have the same average daily motion despite the fact that from a geocentric point of view Mercury and Venus are in orbit around the Sun so that their daily motions appear to be more or less than than of the sun.

The excellent astrology program Janus, which just upgraded to version 5.1 offers the option to calculate the average planetary motion for a 1000-year period.  I selection this option and came up with the following table of planetary speeds for the period from 1500 to 2500 CE.  Here is the table:

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Let’s look at Venus, for example.

During the 1000 yeas from 1500 to 2500 CE, the overall average daily motion of Venus (taking into account both direct and Rx motion) is + 00 59′ 09″, essentially identical to that of the Sun.

The most Venus will travel on any given day is + 01 15′ 36″ degrees.

The minimum value of the daily motion of Venus occurs when she travels Retrogade by an amount of – 00 37′ 59″ degrees.

The average daily motion of Venus when traveling direct is + 01 05′ 31″.

The average daily motion of Venus when traveling Rx is – 00 22′ 50″.

These figures should help the horary astrologer to judge how extremely or normally Venus is behaving in a particular chart.