Station

The moment a planet turns from direct to retrograde, or back — when it appears to stand still.

Retrogrades don't start abruptly. The planet slows day by day until it appears to halt, then reverses. That halt is the station: stationing retrograde going in, stationing direct coming out.

It's the moment in the cycle most worth marking, because it's the turn itself rather than a day somewhere in the middle.

Why this site reports slow-planet stations to the day and not the minute. The ephemeris resolves to 1e-4°, and Neptune moves roughly one arcsecond across the whole day around its station. At that resolution an exact clock time cannot be computed — printing one would be false precision. So slow stations show "all day" on the calendar and only fast planets get a time.

On this siteeach station on the calendar, and whether it carries a time →

RetrogradeA stretch of time when a planet appears to move backward against the stars, seen from Earth.
Direct motionA planet moving forward against the stars — which is what it does most of the time.
EphemerisA table of where celestial bodies are at each moment — or the code that computes one.