Solar Return (太陽返照（西洋）)

Your Chart for the Year, Renewed Each Birthday

Overview

A Solar Return is the annual chart of Western astrology — a fresh horoscope cast for the exact moment the Sun comes back to the degree, minute and second it held at your birth, which happens once a year around your birthday. That chart describes the twelve months from this birthday to the next: a whole new Ascendant, a new house for every planet, and a new set of angles that lift certain planets into the year’s spotlight. It is the tropical, Western cousin of the Vedic Tajika Varshaphala, and one of the most widely used forecasting tools in modern astrology. askTIAN finds the return moment precisely and reads the chart the way astrologers do: the SR Ascendant sets the tone, the house the Sun falls in shows where the year’s energy concentrates, planets on the angles are the headlines, and the chart ruler carries the story.

Origin & history

The solar return is an old idea — the Sun’s yearly ‘revolution’ back to its birth place was used in Hellenistic and Persian-medieval astrology (the same root as the Vedic Varshaphala) — that modern Western astrologers refined into the birthday chart we use today. Where the medieval tradition leaned on the annual profection and the Lord of the Year, the modern reading treats the return chart as a self-contained portrait of the year, emphasising the rising sign, the houses, and planets on the angles.

askTIAN implements the technique faithfully. The return instant is a real astronomical event — the moment the transiting TROPICAL Sun regains its exact natal longitude, found by root-finding, nearest the birthday of the target year (Solar Returns are always tropical — no ayanamsa). The houses use the Placidus semi-arc method, the same engine gold-locked against Albert Einstein’s published chart to the arc-minute. Each of the ten planets (plus the North Node) is placed in its SR house with a retrograde flag; the Ascendant’s traditional and modern rulers, the SR Moon, the planets within eight degrees of an angle, and the chart ruler’s placement all fall out of that chart. The chart is cast at the birthplace by default, with a relocated option — a genuine choice among astrologers, since where you spend the return changes the Ascendant and every house.

How it works

Give the birth data and the Gregorian year whose birthday you want to read. The engine computes the natal Sun, searches for the exact moment the Sun returns to it that year, then casts the chart at the birthplace (or a residence you supply): the Ascendant and Midheaven, the twelve Placidus cusps, and the planets placed in those houses. It surfaces the SR Ascendant with its ruler (the tone-setter), the house the SR Sun occupies (the year’s centre of gravity), the SR Moon, the angular planets (within eight degrees of the Ascendant, Midheaven, Descendant or IC — the year’s emphasised themes), and where the chart ruler sits. Without a birth time and place the return DATE and the planetary positions still resolve, but the Ascendant, houses and angles are omitted — they need an accurate time and place.

Good for

Use cases

Solar Return Chart

Send birth data + a year and receive the full SR chart: Ascendant, Midheaven, Placidus houses and the ten planets placed in them.

The Year’s Tone & Focus

Surface the SR Ascendant (with its ruler), the SR Sun’s house and the SR Moon — the quick read of what the year is about.

Angular Emphasis

Get the planets within eight degrees of an angle — the bodies that dominate the year — sorted by how tightly they sit on the Ascendant, MC, Descendant or IC.

Relocated Return

Pass a residence to cast a relocated solar return — the same instant, but the angles and houses computed for where you actually are.

Key terms

Solar Return
The chart of the exact moment the transiting tropical Sun regains its natal longitude — once a year, near the birthday — read as the horoscope of the year ahead.
SR Ascendant
The rising sign of the return chart; the single most-weighted point, setting the tone and theme of the whole year.
Angular planet
A planet within a few degrees of an angle (Ascendant, Midheaven, Descendant or IC) of the return chart — the year’s emphasised, headline energy.
Chart ruler
The planet that rules the SR Ascendant sign; its house placement shows where the year’s story is carried.
Relocated return
A solar return cast for the place you actually spend the birthday, not the birthplace — the same instant, but a different Ascendant and houses.
The Sun’s house
The house the SR Sun occupies — the area of life where the year’s energy and attention concentrate.
Tropical
Solar Returns are always computed in the tropical zodiac (season-based), unlike the sidereal Vedic Varshaphala.

API

The askTIAN Solar Return endpoint casts the Western annual chart from birth data + a target year: it finds the exact tropical Sun-return instant, then returns the SR Ascendant (with traditional and modern rulers), the Midheaven, the twelve Placidus cusps, and the ten planets plus the North Node placed in the SR houses with retrograde flags — along with the house the SR Sun falls in (the year’s focus), the SR Moon, the angular planets (within 8° of the Ascendant / MC / Descendant / IC, sorted by orb) and the chart ruler’s placement. The return instant is astronomically exact and the Placidus houses share the engine gold-locked against a published chart to the arc-minute; the chart is cast at the birthplace by default with a relocated-return option. Honesty rails note that Solar Returns are always tropical, that the angles need an accurate birth time and place (they shift a whole sign with small changes), and that Placidus degrades inside the polar circles (Porphyry fallback). A best-effort LLM reading is returned in parsable sections; set interpretation:false for structured data only. A mainstream Western predictive method for reflection — not a validated predictor, and not medical, legal or financial advice.

Endpoint: POST /trpc/solarReturn.chart — 7 TIAN Points. See the API documentation and Playground.