Effective Orb Widths

I was writing interpretations for natal aspects from Mercury to Uranus. I always like to look at the famous people who have the aspect on which I am working. This revealed an interesting situation. Relatively few famous people were born with the trine aspect, but many were born with the square aspect. A statistical comparison of the famous people frequencies for the trine and square aspects using different orb widths tells us two things - the little planet Mercury should not be overlooked because it packs a big punch and the effectiveness of an aspect rapidly diminishes as the orb gets wider. The closest aspects with the ratio between trine and square are at the bottom of the following list.

Mercury trine Uranus, 25 degrees orb, 990 found
Mercury square Uranus, 25 degrees orb, 1007 found, ratio 1007/990 = 1.017

Mercury trine Uranus, 15 degrees orb, 594 found
Mercury square Uranus, 15 degrees orb, 614 found, ratio 614/594 = 1.034

Mercury trine Uranus, 10 degrees orb, 417 found
Mercury square Uranus, 10 degrees orb, 431 found, ratio 431/417 = 1.034

Mercury trine Uranus, 9 degrees orb, 385 found
Mercury square Uranus, 9 degrees orb, 397 found, ratio 397/385 = 1.031

Mercury trine Uranus, 8 degrees orb, 343 found
Mercury square Uranus, 8 degrees orb, 360 found, ratio 360/343 = 1.049

Mercury trine Uranus, 7 degrees orb, 304 found
Mercury square Uranus, 7 degrees orb, 313 found, ratio 313/304 = 1.030

Mercury trine Uranus, 6 degrees orb, 258 found
Mercury square Uranus, 6 degrees orb, 266 found, ratio 266/258 = 1.031

Mercury trine Uranus, 5 degrees orb, 211 found
Mercury square Uranus, 5 degrees orb, 226 found, ratio 226/211 = 1.071

Mercury trine Uranus, 4 degrees orb, 165 found
Mercury square Uranus, 4 degrees orb, 178 found, ratio 178/165 = 1.079

Mercury trine Uranus, 3 degrees orb, 120 found
Mercury square Uranus, 3 degrees orb, 140 found, ratio 140/120 = 1.167

Mercury trine Uranus, 2 degrees orb, 76 found
Mercury square Uranus, 2 degrees orb, 99 found, ratio 99/76 = 1.303

Mercury trine Uranus, 1 degree orb, 25 found
Mercury square Uranus, 1 degree orb, 49 found, ratio 49/25 = 1.960

Mercury trine Uranus, .5 degrees orb, 14 found [.5 degrees = 1/2 of a degree]
Mercury square Uranus, .5 degrees orb, 25 found, ratio 25/14 = 1.786

Mercury trine Uranus, .25 degrees orb, 5 found [.25 degrees = 1/4 of a degree]
Mercury square Uranus, .25 degrees orb, 12 found, ratio 12/5 = 2.571

If you want to duplicate these results with the famousp.cht file that comes with AstrolDeluxe Platinum, you can, if you wish, duplicate using all of the chart records, but Mercury is a fast moving planet so I preferred to first eliminate the unknown birth time charts, which I do with Research Charts, Search One, By House, and by selecting Ascendant in the 1st House. In my famous file, that cuts it down to 3748 records with known birth times. Then I do the aspect search at Search Two, By Aspect, which gives the result numbers shown above.

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