Why most free charts leave Chiron out
Chiron is not in the standard planetary theories that browser-based calculators use. It is a small body on an unstable, wobbling orbit between Saturn and Uranus, and computing its position requires a separate ephemeris rather than a formula.
That is the practical reason it is missing from so many free tools, and it is why this site samples Chiron's position from the Swiss Ephemeris across two centuries and interpolates between the samples. The worst disagreement found in the most recent check was under three arc seconds.
What Chiron is, astronomically
Discovered in 1977, Chiron was first classified as an asteroid, then as a comet, and now sits in a category called centaurs: bodies crossing the orbits of the outer planets on paths that are not stable over long timescales. Its orbit takes about fifty and a half years and is markedly elliptical.
That eccentricity matters for reading it. Chiron races through some signs in under two years and crawls through others for eight or more, so the size of the generation sharing your Chiron sign varies enormously depending on which sign it is.
What astrologers read it for
The standard reading is the wound that does not close, and the competence that grows around it. Chiron marks an area where something went wrong early enough that you never learned to do it naturally, and where you consequently understand the mechanism better than people to whom it came easily.
The teaching half is the part usually skipped. People with a prominent Chiron frequently end up advising others in precisely the area they still find difficult themselves, and the two facts are connected rather than ironic.
It is worth saying that this is interpretation rather than observation. The position is exact; what it means is a convention astrologers agreed on in the decades after 1977, and it is younger than most of the tradition.
The house matters more than the sign
Because Chiron can hold a sign for years, the sign is generational. Everyone born in a stretch shares it, and reading it as a personal trait misses what the placement is for.
The house is yours, and it names the department of life the difficulty sits in. Chiron in the seventh describes it in partnership; Chiron in the tenth in career and standing; Chiron in the fourth in the family you came from. That distinction is the single most useful thing to take from the placement, and it needs a birth time.
The Chiron return
At around fifty, Chiron comes back to the degree it held at your birth. It is less famous than the Saturn return and is described in similar terms: a period when the material the placement describes stops being avoidable.
Because the orbit is so eccentric, the age varies more than Saturn's does. Depending on where your Chiron sits, the return can arrive anywhere between about forty-seven and fifty-three. The transit calculator will show you the exact contact if you enter a date near your fiftieth year.
Aspects to Chiron
A Chiron making no close aspects is quiet, and plenty of charts have one. A Chiron conjunct the Sun, the Moon or the ascendant is prominent enough that the theme tends to organise a good deal of the life around it.
Contacts to Saturn are commonly read as the difficulty becoming a discipline; contacts to Jupiter as it becoming something taught. Both readings hold up reasonably well against what people report, which is more than can be said for some of the finer distinctions in the literature.
Reading it without a birth time
Chiron moves slowly enough that the sign and degree are settled by the date alone. What you lose is the house, which is the part that makes the placement specific, and any aspect to the angles.
If you have no birth time, the sign still tells you something about the cohort you belong to, and the aspects Chiron makes to the other slow bodies are unaffected. It is a partial reading rather than an empty one.
Common questions
Why is Chiron missing from other free calculators?
It is not in the standard planetary theories browsers use, so its position needs a separate ephemeris. This site samples it from the Swiss Ephemeris, with a worst-case error under three arc seconds.
Is Chiron a planet?
No. It is a centaur, a small body crossing the outer planets' orbits on a path that is not stable over long timescales. It was classified first as an asteroid and then as a comet.
What is Chiron read for?
The area where something went wrong early enough that you never learned to do it naturally, and the understanding that grew around that. The teaching half is as much a part of the reading as the difficulty.
Does the sign or the house matter more?
The house, clearly. Chiron can hold a sign for years, so the sign is generational. The house names which department of life the material sits in, and it needs a birth time.
When is my Chiron return?
Around fifty, but the orbit is eccentric enough that it can fall anywhere between about forty-seven and fifty-three. The transit calculator gives the exact contact.
How old is the interpretation?
Younger than most of the tradition. Chiron was discovered in 1977, so everything attached to it was agreed on in the decades since.