The sky on Monday, February 8, 2027
| Sun in | Aquarius |
|---|---|
| Moon in | Pisces |
| Moon phase | New Moon |
| Illumination | 3% |
| Exact aspects | Mercury sextile Venus Mercury opposition Mars Venus trine Mars |
| Mercury retrograde | No |
Mercury and Venus stand about sixty degrees apart today, a sextile, traditionally read as an easy, cooperative angle. Mercury and Mars face each other across the zodiac today, an opposition, read as a pull between the two ends of one axis. The Moon is in Pisces, near new and all but invisible beside the Sun.
What is a station?
A station is the moment a planet's apparent motion pauses before it changes direction, either turning retrograde or turning direct again.
Seen from Earth, a planet slows down as it approaches a station until, for a short time, it barely moves against the stars at all. Then it starts moving the other way. Both ends of a retrograde period are stations: one going in, one coming out.
Astrologers pay attention to stations because a body that stops moving sits on the same degree of the zodiac for days, which makes its theme unusually persistent. That is a statement about duration, not about severity.
Stations are rare on a daily page. Across a whole year there are only about a dozen among the classical planets, which is why they get their own line when one occurs.