2020
Mercury was retrograde three times in 2020, for 69 days in all: in Pisces → Aquarius in late winter, in Cancer in early summer and in Scorpio → Libra in mid-autumn.
The year wound into a circle, January at the top. Distance from the centre is Mercury’s daily motion; wherever the trace dips inside the zero circle, Mercury is moving backward: three dips, three retrogrades. Each shaded block runs from the station-retrograde day to the station-direct day, both counted, in UTC; the trace is sampled at noon, so it can cross zero a day inside or outside the block.
Three retrogrades
Pisces → Aquarius, Cancer, Scorpio → Libra.
| Station R | Station D | Sign | Shadow in | Shadow out | Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Feb 2020 | 10 Mar 2020 | Pisces → Aquarius | 2 Feb 2020 | 30 Mar 2020 | 23 |
| 18 Jun 2020 | 12 Jul 2020 | Cancer | 2 Jun 2020 | 26 Jul 2020 | 25 |
| 14 Oct 2020 | 3 Nov 2020 | Scorpio → Libra | 23 Sep 2020 | 19 Nov 2020 | 21 |
| Total | 69 |
Every planet in 2020
Eleven retrogrades touched 2020 across the eight planets.
One row per planet. The solid band runs from the day of the station retrograde to the day of the station direct, both counted; the hatched band is the shadow on either side, from the day the planet first reaches the degree it will retreat to until the day it passes the degree where it turned. Days are UTC calendar days; a planet’s sign in the readout is its apparent geocentric longitude at noon UTC. Point at the figure, or focus it and use the arrow keys, to read any day.
Computed from the ephemeris and checked against NASA JPL Horizons; times UTC. Every planet’s 2020 windows as data: JSON · CSV · how the dates are computed
Questions
- 01When was Mercury retrograde in 2020?
- Mercury was retrograde February 17 – March 10 in Pisces → Aquarius; June 18 – July 12 in Cancer; October 14 – November 3 in Scorpio → Libra (station retrograde to station direct). Each window is bracketed by a pre- and post-shadow period — the full dates are in the table above.
- 02How many retrogrades happened in 2020?
- 11 retrograde windows touched 2020 across the eight planets: Mercury 3×, Venus 1×, Mars 1×, Jupiter 1×, Saturn 1×, Uranus 2×, Neptune 1×, Pluto 1×. Because the outer planets are each retrograde for four to five months at a time, some part of the sky was retrograde for most of the year.
- 03What is a retrograde shadow period?
- The shadow (or “retroshade”) is the stretch of sky a planet covers three times: once moving forward, once apparently backward, once forward again. The pre-shadow begins when the planet first crosses the degree it will later retrograde back to; the post-shadow ends when it finally re-passes the degree where it first stationed. The ledger above lists both dates for each Mercury window, and the station chart draws the shadow of every planet’s.
Station alerts
A heads-up before every turn.
An email 3 days before the shadow and each station, one when it turns retrograde, and an all‑clear when it goes direct. Plus a note on each Mercury cazimi.
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