Planetary Picture

Definition

A planetary picture is a midpoint figure in which three or more chart points stand in midpoint relationship — that is, halfway-degree relationship — to one another. Cosmobiology writes it as the equation A = B/C: planet A sits on the midpoint of B and C. Longer pictures run A = B/C = D/E, meaning the focal point A occupies several pair-midpoints at once. The German term is Planetenbild.

In Tradition

In Cosmobiology and Uranian astrology, the planetary picture is the basic unit of midpoint reading. Where ordinary aspect doctrine works with two-planet relationships, planetary pictures work with three-way and larger combinations: the focal point pulls together the meaning of every pair-midpoint it sits on. Ebertin's reference dictionary gives short interpretive formulas for the common pictures, and astrologers read longer ones by combining those listed meanings.

In Practice

Astrologers spot planetary pictures from the midpoint tree or the 90° dial by noting which planets occupy the densest cluster of pair-midpoints within a tight orb. For each picture, the astrologer looks up Ebertin's tables for the two-planet pair-meaning and synthesises those meanings around the focal planet. When a moving planet — by transit, progression, or solar arc — makes a hard-aspect contact to a picture's focal planet, that is read as the trigger that sets the picture off; this is the core timing method in Cosmobiology and Uranian work. Pictures that involve Witte's eight Uranian transneptunian points — Cupido, Hades, Zeus, Kronos, Apollon, Admetos, Vulkanus, Poseidon — are read with the dedicated Uranian symbolism. A picture only counts as active under tight orbs: 1°30′ or less on the 360° wheel, or 22.5′ or less on the 45° dial.

Historical Origin

The planetary-picture idea begins in Alfred Witte's Hamburg School of Uranian astrology in the 1920s and was systematized in Reinhold Ebertin's Cosmobiology. Ebertin's *The Combination of Stellar Influences* — many German editions from 1940, English translation 1972 — is the canonical reference, presenting the picture as the basic unit of symbolic combination. The technique has no Hellenistic, Arabic, or pre-modern Western precursor.

Further Reading

• Reinhold Ebertin, The Combination of Stellar Influences
• Robert Hand, Horoscope Symbols