Chart patterns
Stellium
A pile-up in one sign, which is a claim about weight rather than angle
- Planets involved
- 3
- Built from
- position, not angle
- Focal point
- Yes
What it is
Three or more planets in the same sign. Unlike everything else here it is not defined by an angle, which is why it is detected separately: three planets can share a sign while the first sits at one degree and the last at twenty-eight, and 27 degrees apart is no aspect at all.
The minimum is a convention rather than a fact. Three is the more common definition and is the one this site uses; four is also in use and produces a much stronger finding. The count and the span from the first planet to the last are both reported, because a three planet stellium spread across 25 degrees and a four planet one inside 5 degrees are not the same thing and most tools print them identically.
Some astrologers count stelliums by house rather than by sign. That is a different technique giving different answers, and it needs a birth time to mean anything.
How it reads
Concentration. A sign holding three or more planets takes on a weight in the reading that no single placement has, and the tradition associates it with a person in whom that sign's themes are unusually pronounced.
The standard reading attends to what the rest of the chart is missing as much as to what the stellium holds. Ten planets in twelve signs are usually spread out; a sign holding four of them means several signs hold none, and the emptiness elsewhere is part of the finding.
The ruler of the sign is read as carrying the whole group, which makes it one of the more important placements in a chart that has one.
Where the reading sits
The sign itself, and the planet that rules it. The ruler is where a stellium is traditionally read from, because it governs everything sitting in the sign.
How common it actually is
The most frequent finding on this page by a wide margin: 66.3 per cent of charts, two in three, under the three planet definition. That is the strongest possible argument for stating plainly which definition is in use.
What to watch for
The span. A stellium is only as concentrated as its spread, and a loose one across most of a sign is a much weaker finding than the word suggests.
Do you have a stellium?
The birth chart tool checks for this and the other seven, and names the planets involved. Whether you have one depends on your birth date, time and place, and on the orbs used: this site detects stelliums on the ten planets, without the angles.
The other patterns
- T-squareTwo planets opposite each other, both square a third
- Grand trineThree planets each 120 degrees from the other two
- Grand crossTwo oppositions at right angles: four planets, four squares
- YodTwo planets sextile, both quincunx a third
- KiteA grand trine with a fourth planet opposite one of its points
- Mystic rectangleTwo oppositions joined by two trines and two sextiles
- Grand sextileSix planets evenly spaced: six sextiles, six trines, three oppositions