Reading the Dashboard

If you haven't yet installed AstroWatch or created a birth profile, start with the Getting Started Guide — this page assumes a profile is already loaded and goes deeper on each part of the screen it introduces. Everything here works the same on the Free tier; Vedic-specific variants (Dṛṣṭi instead of aspects, Rāśi/Bhāva columns, the Daśā strip) are Pro and are called out where they differ.

The three-column layout

The Dashboard is three columns between a title bar and a status bar. The left column holds the Planetary Positions and Aspects tables, split by a draggable divider. The centre column is the chart card — the wheel itself plus its toolbar — with the Timeline and (on the Transit tab) the aspect-filter stepper beneath it. The right column holds the Sun & Moon panel plus a third card that changes with context: Lunation Cycle on the Transit tab, Solar Return (or Dosha Highlights, in sidereal mode) on the Natal tab.

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1. 1Left column — Planetary Positions on top, Aspects below, split by a draggable divider.
2. 2Centre column — the chart card: wheel, toolbar, Timeline and (on Transit) the aspect-filter stepper.
3. 3Right column — Sun & Moon, plus the context card that changes with the active tab.

The subject bar and the Natal / Transit tabs

Just under the menu bar sits the subject bar: an avatar, the loaded profile's name, a small NATAL pill and a birth-meta line on the left, and the current date on the right. Centred is the tab pill that switches the whole Dashboard between two contexts:

1. 1

   Natal

   Shows the loaded profile's birth chart. The Timeline (see the Live Sky Timeline page) measures its offset from the profile's actual birth moment here, not from right now — its "now" button even relabels itself Birth · ±0 on this tab.

2. 2

   Transit

   Shows the live sky at your default transit location, refreshing continuously while the Timeline sits at Now · ±0. This is the tab the Dashboard opens on by default.

A Synastry pill sits to the right of the tabs. New in v2.0.0, it's a live one-click export rather than a preview: click it and, once a natal profile is open, AstroWatch prompts you to pick a second person and builds a full Synastry Report PDF comparing the two charts — no need to set up a Synastry ring on the wheel first. See Synastry Reports for what's in the book, including the new "Compatibility at a Glance" opening chapter.

The default transit location

The button in the top-right corner of the title bar — a pin glyph and a city name — sets the location the Transit tab and the Sun & Moon panel use. AstroWatch ships with a factory default of Islamabad, Pakistan; click the button to search any city by name and set your own, and it's remembered the next time you open the app. This is a separate setting from a profile's own birth location — changing it never touches your saved profiles.

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1. 1Search box — type any city name.
2. 2Result list — pick a match; each shows the country or state to disambiguate.
3. 3Update Location — confirms your pick and closes the flyout.

No city in the list? Enter coordinates manually

New in v2.0.0: tick Enter coordinates manually, just below the search box, to set the default transit location by typing latitude and longitude directly instead of searching by name — the same underlying feature covered in full, field by field, on the Getting Started Guide for the New/Edit Profile dialog. The flyout's version is a compact copy of the same panel: Latitude and Longitude boxes with N/S and E/W toggle pills (a typed leading minus flips the hemisphere automatically), an optional Place name field, and a Timezone dropdown that defaults to Auto (nearest city) and can be overridden by hand.

As you type, a resolved line appears beneath the fields — coordinates, timezone and (when known) country — and Update Location enables once it has something valid to save. Un-tick the checkbox to drop back to city search; the manual fields and the resolved line are cleared either way as soon as you click Update Location.

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1. 1Enter coordinates manually — hides the search box and result list, shows this panel.
2. 2Latitude — magnitude plus the N/S hemisphere toggle.
3. 3Longitude — magnitude plus the E/W hemisphere toggle.
4. 4Place name — optional, kept exactly as typed.
5. 5Timezone — auto-resolved from the nearest city, or overridden here.
6. 6Resolved line — coordinates, timezone and country, once valid.

Planetary Positions and Aspects

The left column's top card lists every body in the loaded chart — sign, degree, house and daily speed — independently scrollable from the rest of the page. Its subtitle names the chart and house system currently shown, e.g. Natal chart · Placidus. In sidereal (Vedic) mode the HS and SPEED columns become RĀŚI and NAKṢATRA.

Underneath, the Aspects card lists every aspect in orb, tightest first. A row of filter pills — All / Major / Tight < 2° / Harmonious / Challenging — narrows the list without touching the chart itself. In sidereal mode this strip is replaced with a Dṛṣṭi (graha aspect) header instead, since Vedic aspect rules differ from Western ones. Drag the thin divider between the two cards to resize the split — it's clamped so neither card can be squeezed below about 15% of the column.

The chart toolbar

Six controls sit in the chart card's header, left to right:

1. 1

   Bi-wheel

   Only appears once a natal chart is loaded. Turns on a second ring — the live transit sky, calculated at your default transit location — overlaid around the static natal wheel. Turning it on also adds Natal/Transit sub-tabs to the Planetary Positions card so you can see either body list.

2. 2

   Aspects

   A simple on/off toggle for the aspect lines drawn across the wheel — in single-wheel mode. Switch to Bi-wheel and this becomes an Aspects ▾ menu instead, for choosing which aspect set to draw between the two rings.

3. 3

   Info

   Shows or hides the four info badges on the chart — Ascendant, Midheaven, Sun and Moon, each with its exact degree. Defaults on for round wheel styles and off for square Vedic styles, and remembers your choice across tab switches.

4. 4

   House system

   Opens a menu of house systems — Placidus by default. In tropical mode there are 27 to choose from, from common ones (Koch, Whole Sign, Equal, Campanus) to specialist systems like Draconic, Solar/Lunar and Gauquelin Sectors. Sidereal mode shows a shorter Vedic-relevant list: Whole Sign (the standard Rāśi = Bhāva default), Sri Pati, Placidus (KP) and Equal.

5. 5

   Background animation

   An icon-only toggle (tooltip: Background animation) for the animated night-sky or ivory-paper backdrop behind the wheel.

6. 6

   Expand

   Opens the current chart in the Expanded Chart View — a dedicated full-screen layout covered on its own page. Expanding always takes a snapshot of exactly what you're looking at, including any Timeline offset you've scrubbed to; it never keeps auto-refreshing after that.

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1. 1House system button — opens this menu; shows the active system.
2. 2Checkmark — marks the currently selected system (Placidus, the default).
3. 3Equal & sign-based systems — includes Whole Sign, the shorter list also shown in sidereal mode.

The chart canvas

A blinking LIVE badge appears in the top-right corner of the wheel whenever you're looking at the live Transit chart at Timeline offset zero — it disappears the moment you scrub the Timeline away from now, since the chart is then showing a fixed moment rather than refreshing in real time.

Click any planet glyph on the wheel to open a detail widget in the bottom-right corner — its icon, exact position, house, and every active aspect it's making (or, in sidereal mode, its graha dṛṣṭi). Close it with the × in its corner. The Hover Highlights switch at the bottom-left of the card (on by default) makes hovering or selecting a planet highlight its matching rows in the Planetary Positions and Aspects cards too — turn it off if you find the cross-highlighting distracting.

The Sun & Moon panel

The right column's main card is a live readout for your default transit location: a Daytime/Nighttime chip, the day's daylight length with the change from yesterday, Sunrise/Transit/Set times, and a countdown to the next solstice or equinox — then the same shape of information for the Moon, plus its current illumination percentage and phase. The Movements button in the card header (tooltip: Movements of the Moon) opens a dedicated window for browsing the Moon's sign and phase changes over a longer span.

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1. 1Movements — opens the Movements of the Moon window.
2. 2Daytime / Nighttime chip — flips automatically with sunrise and sunset.
3. 3Countdown — days until the next solstice or equinox.
4. 4Illumination & phase — the same shape of readout repeats for the Moon below.

Lunation Cycle, Solar Return and Dosha Highlights

The card under Sun & Moon changes with the active tab. On Transit, it's the Lunation Cycle card — a diagram of the current synodic month with the next two New Moons, the Moon's node crossings, and its perigee/apogee dates. On Natal, it's the Solar Return card — a thumbnail of this year's Solar Return chart with its Ascendant, Midheaven and Moon, and a button to open the full Solar Return chart. Switch AstroWatch into sidereal mode and the Natal-tab card becomes Dosha Highlights instead — Manglik and Kāla Sarpa flags plus a Sade Sati tracker with its own prev/next cycle buttons.

Exporting reports from the Dashboard

Before v2.0.0, every PDF export and Report Manager (then called Written Reports) required switching to the Expanded Chart View first — the Dashboard's own menu items just redirected you there. Three routes now work directly from the Dashboard, each with its own small requirement:

1. Synastry pill

   No requirement beyond a natal profile being open — see above. Prompts for a second person and exports immediately.

2. Reports → Natal+Transit

   Needs the bi-wheel (Natal + Transit) turned on in the chart toolbar first; without it, a prompt asks you to enable the bi-wheel before exporting. Exports the same Transit report PDF as the Expanded Chart View, with no Pro wall of its own — see Predictive Reports.

3. Tools → Report Manager

   Also needs the bi-wheel on (or the chart expanded in multi-chart mode); otherwise a short message asks you to enable it first rather than opening an empty dialog. See Report Manager.

Only the Transit ring exports from the Dashboard this way — Progressed, Solar Return and Lunar Return reports still need the Expanded Chart View, where Configure Wheels can add those rings to begin with.

The status bar

The thin strip along the very bottom of the window is a constant-reference footer: a blinking connection dot with Connected · Swiss Ephemeris, which view is currently active (e.g. Transit active), the aspect count for the loaded chart, and — on the right — the current calculation system (e.g. Tropical · Placidus), your location with its UTC offset, and the app version.

What's next

The Timeline strip under the chart card is the Dashboard's other major feature, and it's involved enough to earn its own page — including the exact keyboard shortcuts, how "now" differs between the Natal and Transit tabs, and the aspect-filter stepper next to it that's easy to mistake for a second timeline: The Live Sky Timeline →