You see, I am looking for the true actual average, fastest and slowest each body moves per day in order to more finely tune my timings in horary. I can easily see the speed for any given day through a chart cast in my software or with the online ephemeris. But this doesn't tell me the true mean motion/day.

Because Mercury and Venus stay close to the Sun, the true mean motion (in terms of zodiacal movement per day) for these two planets has to be the same as the average daily motion of the Sun. Notice that Lilly accepts this, giving the average speed of them both as 59 mins, 8 secs, the same as the Sun.

But of course, this is a different way of establishing their mean, than to take the average speed per day over a period of time. I think the mystery might have something to do with this.

I also wondered yesterday if a simple typo could explain the apparent error in Lilly?s work. Maybe he meant to say ?even more? instead of ?never more?. The quote reads:

?he is sometimes so swift that he moveth 1 degree and 40 mins in a day, never more, so that you are not to marvel if you find him go 66, 68, 70, 80, 86 or 100 in a day??

The fact that he says ?never more? makes the comment so controversial. But on the whole, Lilly?s astronomical details are quite reliable, (which I suppose is why this is so puzzling). This is just a thought. I'm more convinced that it has something to do with the way that the average motions were decided.

Good luck with this though. I'm very interested in what you turn up.

Deb

Connie
I have 3.39 version

it is there.. i am looking at it

CD

Thanks, Deb. I don't see how he could mean even more though, because 100' is 1*40'. If he meant even more that last number would be more than 100. What I may end up doing is to check the actual mean on one or two bodies, then just adjust my increase and decrease of timing according to the actual fastest and slowest they move throughout their cycle.

What is very interesting to me though, is that one planet, moving 33% faster than Lily's mean, according to what he says is max, proved to move the timing a whole unit down, weeks to days. So if that is possible on a regular basis, then when moving faster than what he states, we might see the chart manifest in minutes, easily, or months could become hours. I do think I've been seeing that happen with a client I've been doing a lot of work for.

Thank you both for your time. I'll post anything new I discover.
Connie

Wow, this is weird. I decided to start with Mercury aka quick silver. It really didn't make sense to me that the speed would be the same as the Sun because he returns nearly a week shy of a year. I looked at the entire year, 00GMT. His top speed is 2.133105702/day or 2? 7'59/day on April 20. I pasted the year into a spread sheet, tediously erased the dates and lines shown in the ephemeris, added them all, then divided by 365. The average or mean for the year is 1.244366436/day or 1*14'39"/day. This is 74.5'/day, rather than 59' as Lily stated.

This would be about 80% faster than Lily said, wouldn't it? This seems like it would account for the weird manifestations I've been seeing. As I said, thinking that Mercury only reached 1*40' when he was moving 72' which is 1/3 of his increase according to Lily, I saw a week change to days. His actual fastest is 128'/day so 72' is still near true mean. So why did I see the unit of time completely change? could it be simply because I was perceiving it as faster than norm even though the rate of motion was normal? How weird. I hope this doesn't mean know that I know the true speed, time will stand still and more patience will be required.

Anyway, just wanted to share.

It really didn't make sense to me that the speed would be the same as the Sun because he returns nearly a week shy of a year.

Because Venus and Mercury ?move with the Sun? as seen from the Earth, they both average around the zodiac in a year at the same pace as the Sun (on average remember). But they are not travelling at the same speed as the Sun because they are orbiting around it in circles as they accompany it through the zodiac. Everyone knows that Mercury is the fastest moving planet of all, so of course it wouldn?t make sense to say it has the same speed as the Sun. Lilly is not wrong in giving Venus and Mercury the same measure as the Sun as they travel through the zodiac, but as you?ve illustrated, the daily distance covered by Mercury is significantly more than this. (I?m just clarifying what you?ve discovered here, BTW). The worrying thing is that astrology software, or at least some of it, take 59?08? as the measure against which Mercury is defined as slow or fast in motion, and that is obviously the wrong approach to take. The distance of zodiac travelled in a year is the same as the Sun, but its daily speed is not the same.

It might be a good idea to ask a couple of software developers to take a look at this, because I think you?ve noticed something that has been overlooked. Of course the onus is really on we the astrologers to look at whether a planet is fast or slow, and how fast or slow, before taking it into consideration in our judgements. And for that it does help to have reliable figures for the minimum, average and maximum distances covered per day


Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, Deb. And you're welcome. I don't have software that tells me they are fast or slow, only the actual current speed. This is what alerted me to the fact that the max wasn't correct, according to Lily. I also saw a table on a Rosicrucian site that was different, Ptolomy's I believe.

Mercury still doesn't cover the zodiac in the same time as the Sun though. I looked at my last Mercury returns. The dates are all shy of a year by about 7-8 days.

2003 Oct. 2
2004 Sept. 24
2005 Sept. 16
2006 Sept. 8
2007 Sept 1
2008 Aug. 24

If they really did move the same, perhaps it would be easier to keep our head and heart working together. Mercury the trickster, gets there faster, sometimes keeping us from our true hearts desires with all his logical reasons why we can't have what we most want. But being aware of that can make all the difference in our decision making process. Plus, it's good he's faster than the heart because he's always one step ahead sending out the signals for the next heart beat.

All the best,
Connie

Connie

http://www.astrowin.org/astrowin.htm

go here ..

download the software
install it

enter the data

click on okay

now on top menu, click on Data
See, Natal?
mouse over to inner menu
you should see Horary Basics
click on it ..
you wil see the speed of planets

if you are still running into problems, PM me

cheers
CD

Thanks CD. I have the software, as I said. I hadn't seen the horary section though. But I wouldn't trust it here. For example, it says that Mercury at 1*1' is fast which I have just proven is below his mean, so he is really slow at that speed. And even if his mean was 59' I wouldn't call 2' fast, only slightly above average. Again, the judgment of fast or slow is only as good as the "facts" it is based on and the perception of the one making the judgment. Perhaps the programmer thought 2 minutes (probably using someone else's figures for mean) was a lot for Mercury. Also, if they used the same entry in the program to determine fast or slow it wouldn't be correct because some are much more variable than others. Making the judgment of fast/slow for a body that goes Rx is much different than it would be for the lights, who never appear Rx.

Thanks again,
Connie

Connie

I think you are looking in a wrong window

ohh boy

okay i know this for a fact. Merc after retro is always slow.. at which point merc speeds up, i dont know. if you are still skeptical go by calculator.. i am not that familiar with what is exactly fast or slow ...

sorry i am not much of a help

I have solar fire.. i dont have kepler so cant really tell you where to look

here is the screenshot


www.geocities.com/tikana4/screenshot.jpg

there you go

Yes, that is exactly where I was looking.

Connie

this is the entire page of horary basics


Now
15 Mar 2008 TZ = 8.0 7.3200 P.M. 33.08 NORTH 117.13 WEST

STRICTURES and WARNINGS -
ASCENDANT is in Via Combusta.

Planet Sign Exlt. Trip. Term Face Speed Rate
------ ---- ----- ----- ---- ---- ----- ----
SUN JUPITER VENUS MARS MARS MARS FAST 0d 60m
MOON MOON JUPITER MARS MERCURY MERCURY FAST 13d 35m
MERCURY JUPITER VENUS MARS VENUS SATURN FAST 1d 25m
VENUS JUPITER VENUS MARS VENUS SATURN FAST 1d 14m
MARS MOON JUPITER MARS MARS VENUS SLOW 0d 23m
JUPITER SATURN MARS MOON JUPITER MARS FAST 0d 09m
SATURN MERCURY MERCURY MOON MERCURY SUN FAST R 0d 04m
PART F. SATURN --- MERCURY MERCURY VENUS Strength = 4

Peregrine - SUN MERCURY SATURN
Detriment - MERCURY
Fall - MERCURY MARS JUPITER
Mutual Reception (by sign) - URANUS-NEPTUNE
Mutual Reception (by exaltation) - MARS-JUPITER

House of Joy - VENUS
Fixed Stars - VENUS - FOMALHAUT

Planets' Strengths:
SUN: -5 MERCURY: -2 VENUS: 14 MARS: 12 JUPITER: 19 SATURN: -3 MOON: 19


26 AQU 22 MEAN NORTH NODE 27 AQU 24 TRUE NORTH NODE

17 LEO 26 P of ILLNESS 14 LEO 03 P/DEATH-trad. 29 SCO 46 P of MARRIAGE
24 PIS 28 P of FATALITY 19 LEO 19 Point of DEATH 24 GEM 59 P.F. - night

Moon's Aspects -
From - OPPOSITE PLUTO TRINE MERCURY SEXTILE SATURN TRINE VENUS
CONJUNCT MARS
To - OPPOSITE JUPITER TRINE URANUS TRINE SUN

Moon's Aspects Within Orb
-------------------------
MOON Trine APP, dex SUN 8.1 degree
MOON Opposite APP, dex JUPITER 0.3 degree
MOON Trine APP, dex URANUS 1.3 degree
MOON Square ASC 0.9 degree
MOON Conjunct MC 0.6 degree



In Critical Degrees: VENUS


00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
PL SA MA PF AS MO JU UR NE SU NN
1 3 4 8 16 17 18 19 22 25 26
CP VI CA AQ LI CA CP PI AQ PI AQ
2 33 8 44 51 48 4 4 58 56 22
R
ME VE MC
1 3 18
PI PI CA
40 57 21

CH
18
AQ

what are you not seeing?

cheers
CD

If I would have punched in the same date and time I would have seen exactly what you are showing here. I was referring to March 3. I chose a date when Mercury was closer to what Lily says is mean, but above, to see how it would be judged. Now I haven't calculated the other planets yet, only Mercury. But I see the others actually move faster too. And I won't be able to get a true picture without calculating more than one year. I see that Venus only reaches over 1*14 minutes during 2008 but last year was well over 1*15'.

My point is, I am not disputing that there is software that displays what the author believes to be judgment of fast/slow. If you read through my posts you will see that. My concern is that the popular judgment is not correct. You can use it if you want, I won't. While I highly respect the work of our forefathers I am aware that they did not have the means to judge all things correctly. Hey, they didn't even know that Pluto existed anywhere other than in mythology. I'm sure I've learned a lot since that day too. It wouldn't be wise for me to hold fast to tradition simply because it is tradition. We tend to repeat the mistakes of the past with this path.

Connie