♄ Saturn Combustion 2026

Saturn is the greater malefic of traditional astrology and the significator of duty, rules, land and buildings, old age, endurance and limits. Combust, its matters are read as out of sight rather than gone: obligations continue, but inspections, permits and approvals slow down, and older people and those in authority are harder to reach. The cazimi is counted as Saturn at its most constructive, a day for commitments meant to last.

The Sun and Saturn are old opposites in the dignity scheme. Saturn rules the two signs opposite the Sun's and the Moon's, and each is exalted where the other falls: the Sun in Aries, Saturn in Libra. So a conjunction in Aries, as in 2026 and 2027, pairs an exalted Sun with Saturn in its fall.

Saturn is combust from March 15 to April 4, 2026, 19 days, and the Sun passes it on March 25, 2026, at 08:55 UTC, at 4°43′ Aries. Under the beams, the wider 17° zone, it is hidden from March 5 to April 14, 2026.

The card adds the hours of the cazimi window and how far Saturn passes from the Sun's center.

One combustion per row, eleven in all, with no year missing in this range. Saturn moves only 2.4° to 2.7° while it is combust, so the path column crosses a sign boundary in just one of them.

Saturn creeps forward 0.123° to 0.130° a day near its conjunctions, so after a full lap the Sun needs only 378 to 380 days to catch it again. The date of the cazimi therefore slips 13 to 15 days later each year, and its degree advances 12.6° to 14.2°. Across these years that walks the date from March 12 to August 1.

Since each step is less than half a sign, consecutive cazimis often share a sign: Pisces (2025), Aries (2026 and 2027), Taurus (2028, 2029 and 2030), Gemini (2031 and 2032), Cancer (2033 and 2034) and Leo (2035).

Saturn's orbit is tilted a little against Earth's, so at the moment of conjunction in longitude it passes north or south of the Sun rather than through it. In these years it passes south at the nine cazimis from 2025 to 2033, by as much as 2°13′ in 2027, and north from 2034.

On July 17, 2034, at 09:49 UTC the gap is only 0°02′, inside the Sun's apparent radius of 15.7′: Saturn passes behind the solar disk itself.

None of this changes the cazimi as most astrologers count it, which uses longitude only, but it shows how literally Saturn sits "in the heart of the Sun" on a given date.

About 6% of all days in these years have Saturn combust, a few weeks each year, which puts about one birth in 17 inside it. The traditional reading is a Saturn that works through the self: discipline applied to one's own ambitions, a habit of carrying responsibility alone, and authority that has to be built rather than inherited. The house of the conjunction shows where the weight sits.

Births inside the cazimi window, about 16 hours a year, are read as Saturn fused with the Sun's purpose: patience and seriousness as part of identity rather than a burden on it.

The birth chart calculator gives the Sun and Saturn degrees, so you can see whether yours qualifies.

Each year Saturn spends 4.4 to 4.5 months retrograde, centered on its opposition, and 19 to 20 days combust, centered on its conjunction half a year later or earlier. Counting from the stations, each cazimi comes 117 to 124 days after Saturn's direct station, and the next retrograde station is 121 to 125 days away.

The two never meet. A retrograde Saturn is at its nearest and brightest, up all night; a combust Saturn is at its farthest and lost in daylight.

No Saturn combustion straddles New Year in these years, so every year from 2025 to 2035 has a single combustion of 21 to 22 calendar days.

Saturn's and the Sun's longitudes are taken from precise astronomical calculations, geocentric and apparent, in the tropical zodiac. The orbs are 8°30′ for combustion, 17° for under the beams and 17′ for cazimi. The start, end and cazimi of each period are found to the second; a second program recomputes all of them and stops if any date disagrees.

Calendar days are counted in UTC, and times in the cards and tables switch to your zone once the page has loaded. Site-wide conventions are set out on the about page.