Mirach
Beta Andromedae · Andromeda
Last updated
Position (2026)
♉ 0°46′ Taurus
Magnitude
2.07
Planetary Nature
Venus (Robson)
Alvidas: Mars / Moon
Spectral Type
M0IIIvar
Appearance
A red giant in the girdle of Andromeda, with a warm golden-orange hue visible to the naked eye
Name Origin
Language
Arabic
Original Form
Al Mīzar
Meaning
The Girdle, the Waistband
Beta Andromedae. From the Arabic Al Mīzar, the girdle or waistband, referring to the zone across Andromeda's body where the star sits. Allen notes confusion with Mizar in Ursa Major due to the shared Arabic root. Also given as Mi'zar al-Musalsal (the Girdle of the Chained Woman).
Known As
Andromeda's girdle holds Mirach, on the figure of the princess chained to a rock after her mother's boast about her beauty. Perseus frees her from the sea-monster and takes her as his bride. The star's Venus character centers on affection and kindness, with a reputation for good fortune in marriage. Receptivity is its creative ability. In music or dance, attention to another person's rhythm changes what becomes possible together. The wish for closeness can harden into an expectation, and the old relationship readings include the disappointment of a love that differs from the one imagined.
Good fortune in marriage is Mirach's reputation in Allen and Robson. Yet Robson's Sun and Moon entries describe relationship trouble, and his Venus entry is harsher still. [2] [1] Affection matters deeply here, but wanting closeness and making room for another person take different kinds of effort. You have to hear a partner's answer even when you had hoped for something else.
Brady emphasizes receptivity, the ability to listen and make creative use of what you receive. [7] With a close Mirach contact, kindness takes the form of a response. You adjust to another person's movement or give their idea enough attention to make something together. In 2026 the star is at 0°46′ Taurus, just beyond the sign boundary it crossed in October 1970.
Mirach by birth year
On 1 January 2026, Mirach stood at ♉ 0°46′ Taurus in the tropical zodiac.
It entered Taurus in October 1970.
Positions are for 1 January of each year; a star moves about 50 arcseconds a year, so a birth late in the decade sits close to the next row.
| Born in | Position |
|---|---|
| 1900 | ♈ 29°01′ Aries |
| 1910 | ♈ 29°09′ Aries |
| 1920 | ♈ 29°18′ Aries |
| 1930 | ♈ 29°26′ Aries |
| 1940 | ♈ 29°34′ Aries |
| 1950 | ♈ 29°42′ Aries |
| 1960 | ♈ 29°51′ Aries |
| 1970 | ♈ 29°59′ Aries |
| 1980 | ♉ 0°07′ Taurus |
| 1990 | ♉ 0°16′ Taurus |
| 2000 | ♉ 0°24′ Taurus |
| 2010 | ♉ 0°33′ Taurus |
| 2020 | ♉ 0°41′ Taurus |
| 2030 | ♉ 0°50′ Taurus |
From latitudes poleward of 54.2° S it never rises, and from latitudes poleward of 54.2° N it never sets (geometric horizon, refraction ignored).
Computed by the Augurine engine on the apparent equinox of date from HYG coordinates with proper motion applied (engine build 1c1cc33).
Marriage fortune and Mirach's difficult Venus
Influence . According to Ptolemy it is of the nature of Venus; and, to Alvidas, of Mars and the Moon. It gives personal beauty, a brilliant mind, a love of home, great devotion, beneficence, forgiveness, love, overcoming by kindness, renown, and good fortune in marriage.
Robson places kindness and forgiveness at the center of his general description. Allen records Mirach's reputation for matrimony and renown, while Ptolemy assigns Venus to Andromeda's stars. Hephaistio repeats that attribution as Aphrodite. [1] [2] [3] [4] In a relationship, generosity includes the willingness to respond after someone has disappointed you. Forgiveness has work to do when affection has survived an expectation the other person could not meet.
Robson's Venus includes scandal and judgments about sexual conduct despite his favorable opening. [1] Read that severe language as period wording and weigh the tendencies against the whole chart. Wanting closeness sometimes coexists with choices that make closeness harder. Appetite and expectations both matter. Stay with the choices someone is making and the relationship they are trying to sustain.
Listening with Mirach's Sun, responding with its Moon
With Sun . Trouble through opposite sex, disappointments in expectations but otherwise favourable. With Moon . Trouble with opposite sex owing to indiscretions, bad for domestic affairs, honour through martial matters. With Mercury. Vacillating, unstable, peculiar events, many travels and changes, little success. With Venus. Voluptuous, bad morals, scandal, drink or drug-taking late in life.
Augurine's calculator allows 45′ for a longitude conjunction with Mirach. With the Sun, expectations about a partner become personal. Robson makes disappointment central but calls the rest of the contact favorable. [1] Brady emphasizes receptivity. [7] When you have already imagined the relationship, the person in front of you has to compete with that expectation. Let their answer change your idea of what the two of you want.
With the Moon, sensitivity to what you receive from others enters life at home. Robson describes domestic difficulties; Brady places Immanuel Kant's Moon culminating with Mirach on his birth day within her account of receptivity. [1] [7] Listening closely does not always make what you hear easy to live with. A partner's answer may unsettle an arrangement you had taken for granted. Give the conversation enough time to reach what each person expects of the household.
With Mercury, a responsive mind takes in material faster than it finds a form for it. Robson describes instability and repeated changes; Brady discusses Leonardo da Vinci's Mercury culminating with Mirach in relation to his art. [1] [7] If unfinished work or repeated changes of direction sound familiar, ask which idea has held your attention long enough to become something you can show another person. Give that idea time before following the next one.
With Mirach on your Ascendant, kindness shapes how you approach people. A longitude conjunction differs from Mirach actually rising, since the star lies about 26° north of the ecliptic. At the Midheaven, receptivity enters the work others know you for. These angle readings apply Robson's Venus character and Brady's receptivity. [1] [7] A response takes visible form in art or becomes audible as rhythm. Skill grows through attending to what another person is doing and adjusting your part.
Astaire's Venus and the work of responding
Fred Astaire is Brady's Venus example. She describes Venus culminating with Mirach and connects the contact with dancing and rhythm. Her wider account treats Mirach as Andromeda's main star while placing Alpheratz with Pegasus; she develops receptivity and fertility from that choice. [7] Dancing makes receptivity visible. You respond to music or another person's movement, and that response requires skill. Pleasure depends on attention to something beyond your own next step.
Fiorenza's modern sidereal reading centers on the strength of a bond. Two people achieve something together that exceeds what either could do alone. [8] Read beside Brady, this is a partnership in which each person's contribution changes what the other is able to make. A shared piece of work gives the relationship a purpose beyond the wish to be fortunate together. Notice where your partner's response improves something you would otherwise have left as it was.
Andromeda's girdle and Mirach's earlier Fish
Notes . A yellow star situated in the girdle of Andromeda. From Mirak, the Loins. Often called Zona Andromedae, or Andromeda’s Girdle.
Allen gives a longer route to the name. He suggests that mirat in the Alfonsine Tables of 1521 came from super mizar in the 1515 Almagest, with the Arabic mi'zar meaning a girdle or waist-cloth. He records confusion with a star in Ursa Major as the spellings changed. Within Andromeda, he describes an earlier position at the girdle and a later one on the left hip; later Arabian astronomy called it the Side of the Chained Woman. [2]
The Fish is an older placement in Allen's account. Mirach appears in early drawings of the northern Fish, and its lunar-mansion names include the Belly of the Fish and the Heart of the Fish. [2] Robson retains that Fish identity in his lunar mansions, where he names Mirach as Al Batn al Hut. [1]
Andromeda herself has a harder story. Robson recounts Cassiopeia's boast about her daughter's beauty, the sea-monster sent against the country, and Perseus's rescue of the chained Andromeda. [1] Manilius links the rising constellation with punishment and prison work. Firmicus describes punitive occupations when Andromeda rises with the twelfth degree of Pisces, with the circumstances modified by planetary aspects. [5] [6] Both describe the constellation. Keep those accounts distinct from a contact with the individual star Mirach.
Mirach's move into Taurus in October 1970
Mirach crossed into tropical Taurus in October 1970 and stands at 0°46′ Taurus in 2026. Robson gives 29°17′ Aries in 1920. [1] A reader with an older book and a recent chart is looking at positions from different dates. For a 1960 birth, the calculated position is 29°51′ Aries; for 1980 it is 0°07′ Taurus. Near this boundary, the birth year determines which sign you use to find the contact.
Ptolemy's Venus attribution to Andromeda and Hephaistio's matching nature long predate Mirach's crossing into Taurus. [3] [4] A change of tropical sign leaves the star's name and inherited reading intact. Use the dated degree to locate the contact, including when it falls on the Aries side of the boundary.
Al Batn al Hut and Mirach's traveling Moon
Robson's twenty-sixth Arabic lunar mansion is Al Batn al Hut, the Belly of the Fish, which he identifies with Beta Andromeda. He connects it with harvest and merchandise, protection for travelers, and marital happiness alongside loss of treasure. His instruction for the Moon there includes travel. [1] These are purposes for an election, where the Moon's position belongs to the time chosen for an undertaking.
Within Robson's mansion scheme, the Moon here favors setting out on a journey. [1] That recommendation concerns the time of departure. A natal Mirach contact concerns the person and uses a different technique. For a travel election in Robson's scheme, check the Moon's mansion at the proposed departure time.
Mirach's girdle on the chained Andromeda
Mirach sits in Andromeda's girdle, on the figure of the chained princess. [1] The later Arabian title Side of the Chained Woman keeps her captivity in the star's name, as Allen explains. [2]
Andromeda is the daughter of Cepheus, king of Aethiopia, and Cassiopeia. Her mother boasts that the girl's beauty surpasses that of the Nereids. Neptune answers the boast by sending Cetus, a sea-monster, to devastate the country. To free the country from the creature, he demands that Andromeda be offered as a sacrifice. The daughter has to face the monster sent in answer to her mother's words. She is chained to a rock when Perseus finds her. Perseus rides through the air on Pegasus with Medusa's head as his weapon in Robson's story. [1]
She was accordingly chained to a rock, but was discovered and released by Perseus, who, riding through the air on Pegasus, slew the monster by turning it to stone with the Medusa’s Head and claimed Andromeda as his bride.
How the authors read Mirach
| Source | Nature | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Ptolemy | Venus | Ptolemy assigns Venus to the stars in Andromeda in Tetrabiblos 1.9. This is the basis for reading Mirach through affection and kindness. [3] |
| Hephaistio | Venus | Hephaistio assigns Andromeda's stars to Aphrodite in the northern constellation list, numbered 1.4 in Schmidt's translation. [4] |
| Robson | Venus | Robson follows Ptolemy's Venus attribution and reports Mars with the Moon as Alvidas's alternative. Kindness and marriage fortune lead his general description. [1] |
| Brady | no planetary mixture given | Brady emphasizes receptivity and fertility. Her natal reading concerns listening and making creative use of what is received. [7] |
Natal Conjunctions
Find your conjunctions →Mirach Conjunct Sun
The partner you imagined sometimes becomes the measure of the life you expected to lead. Robson makes disappointment central to this contact while calling it otherwise favourable. Brady's general emphasis on receptivity gives that difficulty a response grounded in listening. Affection has more room when the other person can describe what they want before you decide what the relationship ought to become. Devotion can develop through hearing an answer you had not anticipated.
Mirach Conjunct Moon
At home, caring for someone and hearing what they want are separate tasks. Robson describes domestic difficulty through indiscretions, alongside honour in martial matters. Brady's Kant example, Mirach culminating with his Moon, turns toward human welfare. The conjunction concerns where sensitivity goes, from a household conversation to concern for how others live. Commitment to a larger good can coexist with close relationships that need a more attentive response.
Mirach Conjunct Mercury
Incoming ideas can change your direction before earlier work has taken form. Robson describes vacillation and repeated changes; Brady's Leonardo example links Mercury culminating with Mirach to his art. A new impression can interrupt the work or supply material for it. The practical difference is whether you stay with a subject long enough to make something another person can encounter.
Mirach Conjunct Venus
Wanting closeness is easier than attending to what the other person enjoys. Robson's Venus account dwells on appetite and scandal, in moral terms that deserve less weight than his general emphasis on kindness. Brady's Astaire example, Mirach culminating with his Venus, gives rhythm and dance a place in the reading. Responsive pleasure requires attention to another person's timing. The conjunction can be explored through how enjoyment develops when both people have room to express what they want.
Mirach Conjunct Mars
When someone resists your plan, affection has to survive your impatience. Robson's Mars description concerns boisterous conduct and disruptive company. Read that against Mirach's general kindness. The difficulty lies in a manner harsher than the affection behind it. In shared work, a forceful contribution may be useful once you have heard what the other person is attempting. Cooperation depends on leaving them enough space to act.
Mirach Conjunct Jupiter
Help from another person can widen your opportunities while creating expectations of its own. Robson specifically names assistance from women, with possible scandal and legal or church difficulties. The working reading concerns support whose terms need to be understood. Gratitude can coexist with a difference over what the relationship requires. A generous arrangement works better when both people can discuss its limits before accepting a larger commitment.
Mirach Conjunct Saturn
An unfinished piece of work tests your attention when something more appealing comes along. Robson combines mechanical genius with strong passions and misdirected talent. Frustration with a demanding task gives that conflict a place to examine. Mirach's receptivity can help you learn from the material or from another person's suggestion. Returning to the unfinished part requires patience with the work after the initial excitement has passed.
Mirach Conjunct Uranus
An absorbing interest asks for time that people at home also want from you. Robson gives occult interests and continual disappointment, but frames his account with psychiatric and violent predictions from his 1923 register. For a working reading, examine how a consuming interest changes your availability to people close to you. Independent inquiry can continue alongside domestic consideration when expectations are discussed before resentment has accumulated.
Mirach Conjunct Neptune
A business venture absorbs attention that a partner feels they no longer receive. Robson describes business success alongside domestic separation and difficulties through companies or inventions. His hostile character judgments and fatal ending need weighing against the whole chart. The contact concerns sustained ambition alongside the strain it places on shared life. A successful undertaking can still require changes in how decisions are shared, particularly when a partner has had little say in the sacrifices involved.
Mirach Conjunct Pluto
When you listen closely, an unexpected answer tests how much room the other person has. Read this through Mirach's concern with receptivity. Deep attention can help you understand someone, while insistence on a particular answer can close the conversation. A change in the relationship makes that difference harder to avoid. Affection has room to develop when both people can say what has altered and consider what they still want to make possible together.
Mirach Conjunct North Node
Receiving another person's idea can change what you are prepared to attempt. This contact gives Mirach's creative receptivity a setting in relationships through which a direction develops. Growth may involve listening long enough for a contribution to change the work, then giving it a form of your own. A sustained exchange takes form in a result where each person can recognise what the other contributed.
Mirach Conjunct Ascendant
At a first meeting, kindness takes the form of an attentive response. This applies Robson's general character and Brady's receptive listening to the personal angle. A longitude conjunction to the Ascendant differs from Mirach's actual rising because the star lies north of the ecliptic. The reading concerns whether curiosity about another person survives your first impression. An attentive response allows the relationship to develop beyond what either person initially expected.
Mirach Conjunct Midheaven
People come to know your work through how closely it answers another person's contribution. Brady's culmination examples connect Mirach with art and rhythm; her general reading concerns making creative use of what is received. Applied to the Midheaven, this suggests a professional practice that changes through close attention to its subject or collaborators. Recognition can centre on how well the finished work responds to something another person has contributed.
Paran Interpretations
Parans describe what happens when Mirach and a planet simultaneously occupy the four angles (rising, culminating, setting, nadir) at a given location.
Mirach in Paran with Sun
Rising
Someone else's idea gives you something to develop early in life, and the response you make helps you discover what you want to express.
Culminating
Creative response becomes visible at the height of public life. Recognition can concern work that makes thoughtful use of what you have heard or experienced.
Setting
Your own contribution changes as you listen to someone else in later companionship. The work you undertake together gives an established sense of purpose room to develop.
At the Nadir
Creative work preserves a private sense of self when you make it for your own satisfaction. Its later significance may lie in what it helped someone close to you express.
Mirach in Paran with Moon
Rising
Finding out what another person needs is an early lesson in care at home. An attentive response leaves time to ask what help is wanted before offering it.
Culminating
Brady's Kant example has Mirach culminating with the Moon and concerns a society that benefits each person. At the height of life, care for human welfare seeks public form.
Setting
A changing household asks for fresh listening in later life. Familiar affection can support an arrangement that fits how people live now.
At the Nadir
Long-remembered kindness shapes the choices you make in private. In old age, the ability to hear a familiar person differently may renew life at home.
Mirach in Paran with Mercury
Rising
One new impression gives an early attempt at making or explaining something a direction. Staying with it long enough to make a first attempt matters more than collecting further impressions.
Culminating
A receptive mind finds public expression in art. Brady connects Leonardo's Mercury culminating with Mirach to his art; received material becomes something others can experience.
Setting
A collaborator's question prompts you to revise a familiar creative approach as you grow older. Unfinished material may take a form that had previously escaped you.
At the Nadir
A sketch or private note holds material that takes years to develop. Late work may find a use for material kept without an immediate purpose.
Mirach in Paran with Venus
Rising
Music or shared movement gives pleasure through responding to another participant when you first join in. Creative confidence grows through taking time to hear the music or follow the other person's movement.
Culminating
Brady links Astaire's dancing with Mirach culminating with his Venus. At the height of an artistic life, rhythm depends on practised response to timing and movement.
Setting
Curiosity about a partner's pleasure helps affection develop as a relationship matures. A shared creative activity gives listening a practical form as both people's interests change.
At the Nadir
Hearing music in private recalls a response once shared with someone close. Later in life, that remembered pleasure gives the relationship a presence beyond the original occasion.
Mirach in Paran with Mars
Rising
Playing or making something together teaches you how another person attempts the task while you are still learning. Cooperation begins with learning when to contribute and when to wait for their response.
Culminating
Creative effort finds a public purpose when it responds to the work already underway. At professional maturity, a forceful contribution needs timing that colleagues can work with.
Setting
Partnership can change the pace of effort in later life. Listening to a collaborator helps direct determination toward the part of the task that needs it.
At the Nadir
Alone with difficult material, attending closely gives frustration somewhere to go. Later satisfaction can come from completing an old attempt with greater patience.
Mirach in Paran with Jupiter
Rising
An encouraging person gives early creative interests room to grow. Generosity helps when it responds to the particular ability a person wants to develop.
Culminating
Public support extends the audience for receptive work as your practice develops. A generous undertaking needs continued attention to the people it intends to help.
Setting
The recipient's wishes matter more to your choices as you reconsider years of giving. A partnership grows through asking what each person can contribute and wants to receive.
At the Nadir
A remembered act of kindness returns you to help received long ago. Private reflection in late life can reveal how another person's help changed your possibilities.
Mirach in Paran with Saturn
Rising
With patient instruction, early sensitivity finds a craft to practise. The learning requires enough repetition for a response to become deliberate rather than hurried.
Culminating
Refined technique gives receptivity a visible form once your craft is established. The professional task is to keep listening after experience has made a method familiar.
Setting
A partner questions a habit you have relied on for years. Allowing the question time may help an established craft find a fresh creative use in later life.
At the Nadir
Practising a craft for yourself preserves a way of attending closely over many years. Its late value may appear in work completed slowly enough to respond to difficult material.
Mirach in Paran with Ascendant
Rising
Kindness develops through how you receive another person from an early age with the star at the eastern birth angle. Brady's listening theme gives kindness a specific form in first encounters.
Culminating
Responding to others in public life becomes a personal concern with an upper-angle birth star. In the middle years, people may recognise your creative use of their contributions.
Setting
Companionship changes how you understand yourself in later life with a western birth star. A relationship develops when each person remains open to an unexpected response.
At the Nadir
Listening within private life becomes a personal concern with a lower-angle birth star. Later memories may centre on the care given to what someone struggled to express.
Mirach in Paran with Midheaven
Rising
Responding to a creative contribution suggests work you want to keep doing from the first exchange. A rising birth star directs attention to what becomes possible when you respond to someone else's work.
Culminating
You may earn a living through responsive artistry with the star at the upper birth angle. In mature work, skilled listening affects what you make.
Setting
Colleagues help you use an established ability differently in later life with the star at the western birth angle. Their contribution needs room to alter the result, even when you already know the method well.
At the Nadir
Art made for yourself develops far from professional attention with the star at birth's lower angle. Its later value can concern the understanding it made possible between people close to you.
Notable Charts
Fred Astaire
Venus culminating with Mirach, a paran
Brady reads the contact through the harmony and rhythm expressed in Astaire's dancing. [7]
Leonardo da Vinci
Mercury culminating with Mirach, a paran
Brady connects Leonardo's Mercury contact with his art and Mirach's creative receptivity. [7]
Immanuel Kant
The Moon culminating with Mirach, a paran
Brady connects Kant's contact with his ideal of a society concerned with the welfare of each person. [7]
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Mirach conjunct the Sun mean?
Expectations about a partner test devotion with Mirach on your Sun. Robson describes disappointment but calls the rest favorable, while Brady emphasizes receptivity. [1] [7] Listen closely when the relationship differs from what you imagined. The other person's answer needs room to change your expectations.
Why does Mirach promise marriage fortune yet describe relationship trouble?
Robson's general description favors marriage, but his Sun and Moon accounts include difficulties and his Venus account is severe. [1] Kindness is a capacity to practice within a relationship; it leaves the choices of both people open. A favorable star description alone cannot settle how they treat each other.
Why do older books put Mirach in Aries?
Mirach crossed into tropical Taurus in October 1970. Robson's 29°17′ Aries is its position for 1920. [1] Both belong to the same star at different dates. For a natal contact near the boundary, use the birth year's position.
How does Brady read Mirach with Venus?
Brady reads Mirach with Venus through harmony and rhythm in Fred Astaire's chart, where she reports Venus culminating with the star. [7] Responding to music or a partner involves practiced attention. Another person's movement changes what you do next.
What does the name Mirach mean?
The name Mirach comes from Arabic: Al Mīzar, meaning "The Girdle, the Waistband." Beta Andromedae. The star is known by 2 different cultural names across world traditions.
Sources
- Vivian E. Robson, The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology, American Federation of Astrologers, Inc., 1923. Used for entry 70, its 1920 longitude and planet descriptions, Andromeda's story, and Al Batn al Hut.
Text of the 1923 edition; the site quotes a 2017 reprint.
- Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, Dover Publications, Inc., 1899. Used for the girdle derivation and Side of the Chained Woman title; earlier Fish identifications and Mirach's reputation for marriage fortune.
- Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, translated by Frank Egleston Robbins, 1940. Used for the Venus attribution to Andromeda in Tetrabiblos 1.9.
- Hephaistio of Thebes, Apotelesmatics, Book I, translated by Robert Schmidt, The Golden Hind Press, 1994. Used for the Aphrodite attribution to Andromeda in the northern constellation list.
- Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, translated by G. P. Goold, Harvard University Press and William Heinemann Ltd, 1977. Used for Andromeda's rising description in Astronomica V.619 to 630.
- Firmicus Maternus, Ancient Astrology: Theory and Practice, translated by Jean Rhys Bram, Noyes Press, 1975. Used for Andromeda rising with Pisces degree twelve and its planetary qualifications in VIII.17.
- Bernadette Brady, Brady's Book of Fixed Stars, Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1998. Used for receptivity and the reported Moon, Mercury, and Venus culmination examples.
- Nick Anthony Fiorenza, An Introduction to Astronomical Astrology, 2015. Used for the modern sidereal reading of Mirach as a bond of strength between people.
Lunar Mansions
Mirach serves as the determinant star for these 2 lunar mansions across different traditions.
Check if Mirach is active in your chart
Enter your birth data to see which fixed stars conjoin your natal planets.
Keep your chart in Augurine
Create a free account to save your birth details and return to your natal chart.