Educational material, not financial advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Options involve significant risk and are not suitable for every investor. Past behavior of any reading or setup does not guarantee future results.
Why it matters
Most charts show you price and leave the options market somewhere else. Atlas puts them together. It answers one question: where do price, dealer positioning and real options activity line up right now? Atlas is Skylit’s own chart, inside the Skylit app. On one screen you get:
Atlas never calls a direction. An orb tells you how price tends to move through a level (slowed down or sped up), not which way it will go. The thesis is yours.
In plain English. Dealers who take the other side of options trades hedge by buying and selling the underlying. Around some strikes that hedging leans against the move (buying dips, selling rips), so price tends to slow down there. Around others it leans with the move, so price tends to travel faster. The orbs mark where that hedging is concentrated. They say nothing about direction.
Where to find it
Atlas comes with the Pro plan. On other plans the page shows “Available to Pro Tier only”.- Open it: in the left menu, pick ATLAS. It is also listed under HEATSEEKER, so the heatmap and the chart are one tap apart. The same entries are in the phone menu.
- Almost everything else is in Settings: press Shift+S, or click the cog at the right end of the chart header. It holds the Exposure, Projection, indicator, sidecar and alert cards.
Read it in 30 seconds
- Pick your horizon. In Settings > Exposure, set Expirations to match how long you hold. Use Front for 0DTE (same-day expiry) and scalps. Use a wider window such as To Friday or To OPEX (the monthly options expiration) for swings. The orbs change with it. The price chart does not.
- Find the King Node and the nearest nodes above and below price. Many traders treat these as the levels to watch (a rule of thumb, not a tested signal). Turn on Node labels to see each node’s strike and its size as a percent of the king.
- Pick the exposure view. GEX (gamma exposure) tracks how dealer hedging reacts to price. VEX (vanna exposure) tracks how it reacts to volatility. A common rule of thumb: GEX for intraday support and resistance, VEX for multi-day bias, GEX+VEX to see both.
- Look for confluence. Confluence means several independent reasons at one price. Traders usually rate a node higher when it sits on a dark-pool level, a VWAP band or a cluster of flow bars.
- Watch what price does there. The chart shows where the levels are. Price action shows what happens when price arrives.
How to use it
Set up the chart
Why: the right symbol, timeframe and session make every other layer easier to read. Where: the header along the top of the chart, and the first cards in Settings (Shift+S).- Type a ticker in symbol search at the top left. You can chart stocks, ETFs, SPXW (the S&P 500 index options symbol) and futures continuous contracts such as ES1 and NQ1. With a watchlist open, the left and right arrow keys step through its symbols.
- Pick an interval: 1m, 3m, 5m, 10m, 15m, 30m, 1H, 2H, 4H, 1D or 1W. You can also add your own, such as 7m or 90m. The strip shows your pinned set: right-click an interval to drop it, press + to add one back.
- In Settings, pick a Session: RTH (regular trading hours only) or ETH (extended hours, including pre-market and after-hours).
- Also in Settings, pick your timezone (TZ) and a Candles style (Classic, Mono, Neon, Ocean or White).
- Fullscreen (Shift+F) is in the header.
- Copy image and Save image sit in each chart’s own small button row, for sharing a chart. On a narrow chart they fold into a menu there.
Panes and layouts
Why: watch several symbols or timeframes at once, and come back to the same workspace every day. Where: Pane layout and the layout switcher in the chart header.- Open Pane layout and pick an arrangement: Single, 2-Up, 2-Stack, 3-Up, 1 + 2, 4-Grid and more, up to five panes. Phones use the stacked arrangements.
- Click a pane to focus it, then set its symbol and interval.
- In the same Pane layout menu, the Sync row decides how changes spread. With Settings on, a settings change applies to every pane; off, only to the focused pane. Interval, Crosshair, Time and Price link the interval, the crosshair time, the visible time window and the price-axis scale across panes.
[ and ] to cycle through them. You can also export a layout to a file and import it.
Dealer positioning: the orbs
Why: see the strikes where dealer hedging is heaviest, drawn right where price is. That shows where a move may slow down or speed up. Where: Settings (Shift+S) > Exposure.- Choose GEX, VEX or GEX+VEX (or press Shift+G, Shift+V, Shift+C).
- Set Expirations to your holding period.
- Set Nodes to control how many strikes are drawn per candle.
- Turn on Node labels if you want the strike and size printed next to the strongest nodes.
In plain English. GEX (gamma exposure) is about price: how much dealer hedging shifts as the underlying moves, which is why traders read it for intraday support and resistance. VEX (vanna exposure) is about volatility: how much that hedging shifts when implied volatility rises or falls, even if price sits still. A quiet stretch after an event like CPI can move dealer hedges without SPY moving at all. That slower pressure is why traders look at VEX for multi-day bias.
How to read it:
- Size and brightness: bigger, brighter orbs are stronger nodes. The King Node is the strongest on the board for your Expirations setting.
- Color (Default palette): yellow orbs are positive exposure and purple orbs are negative (with GEX+VEX, gold and orange). Strength shows in size and brightness, not in a different color. With Match heatmap palette on, orbs take the heatmap’s color scale instead.
- Positive is not bullish. Around positive nodes price tends to slow down. Around negative nodes it tends to move faster. Either kind can act as support or resistance.
- Changing these settings changes which data is drawn, never the data itself.
Projection
Why: see where positioning sits past the last candle, so you can plan around levels that are coming up. Where: Settings (Shift+S) > Projection.- Switch Projection on.
- It follows your chart interval on its own: short on intraday charts, farther out on higher timeframes.
Indicators
Why: add options flow, dark-pool levels and volume studies to the same chart, so you can check whether they agree with a node. Where: Settings (Shift+S) > the Add card below the indicator rows.- Open Settings and press Add.
- Pick an indicator. It gets its own row in Settings with a cog for its options.
- Most indicators can be added more than once with different settings (for example two VWAPs with different anchors).
SPXW volume. SPXW has no traded volume of its own, so volume-based studies on it use ES futures volume.
Sidecars
Why: keep the full heatmap, other markets, your watchlist and your alerts in view without leaving the chart. Where: Settings (Shift+S). Each sidecar has a switch and a dock side (left or right).- Heatmap (Shift+H): the Heatseeker heatmap for the symbol you are charting, synced to the focused pane. Its cog sets velocity, dock side and header. A symbol with no option chain of its own (ES, NQ) shows a derived board, mapped from a related product.
- Trinity (Shift+T): up to 10 heatmaps side by side, one per symbol (SPXW, SPY and QQQ by default), saved with the layout. When a panel maps onto your chart, press the Spot pill in the Trinity header to show that panel in the chart’s prices, so SPY strikes read as ES prices on an ES chart.
- Watchlist: your lists with live quotes, a Favorites section and columns you can choose.
- Alerts (Shift+A): every price alert you have, across symbols. Click a row to jump to that symbol. The dot switches the alert on or off.
Price alerts
Why: get told when price reaches a level, instead of watching the screen. Where: on the chart, or from a node in the Heatmap or Trinity sidecar. Manage them in the Alerts sidecar (Shift+A).- Right-click the chart at the price you want and pick Add price alert here. To alert on a node instead, pick Alert on nearest node. You can also set one from a node in the Heatmap or Trinity sidecar.
- In the Create alert box, check the level and pick a Trigger: Once turns the alert off after it fires, Repeat keeps it on (with a short wait between alerts).
- An alert set from a node can either watch that exact price or follow the node if it moves to another strike. Pick the one you want.
- Turn on Alert Lines to draw this symbol’s alerts as horizontal lines. Drag a line to move the alert to a new price. The cog styles the lines.
Drawings
Why: mark your own levels, trends and trade plans on the chart. Where: the drawing rail. Open it with the pencil icon in the chart header.- Open the drawing rail and pick a tool, or use a shortcut from the table below.
- Click on the chart to place it.
Drawing presets save a Fibonacci or line style under a name. Star one to make it the default for new drawings of that type. Presets sync to your account (up to 50 across all tools). Press
? to see every shortcut.
Replay
Why: review a past session, or practise reading a chart without knowing what happens next. Where: Replay in the chart header, or Shift+R.- Press Replay (Shift+R).
- Use Select start and click the candle you want to start from, or press Random to drop in at a random minute.
- Press play. The session runs candle by candle, with the orbs, flow and overlays as they were at that minute.
Plugins
Why: extra overlays for specific setups. Where: each plugin is a row in Settings and a group in the Add menu. Which ones you see depends on your plan.- The Quiet Calf is a paid plugin: gap-fill, True Day Open, opening-range, range-expansion and prior-day high/low levels, plus Std Legs (an analyst’s standard-deviation ranges). Its row shows a grey Paid tag if your plan does not include it. It is not on sale yet.
Trade from the chart
Why: see your positions where price is, and act on them without switching screens. Where: the Trade Deck and Traders rows in Settings. Needs a Nexus account.- Trade Deck: your Nexus paper positions drawn on the chart, with one-tap paper trading. Its cog chooses whose positions to show.
- Traders: positions of traders you follow on Nexus, on this chart. The row appears once Trade Deck is set to include followed traders and one of them holds this symbol.
Common routines
These are rules of thumb traders use, collected from experienced traders and member Q&A. None of them is a tested signal.Scalping and 0DTE
Settings that suit short holds- Expirations Front, Nodes 3, 5 or 10 per candle, GEX view.
- 3-minute candles for fine detail. 5 or 10 minutes when you also watch heatmap velocity (how fast each node is growing or shrinking).
- Many scalpers look for reactions at nodes rather than breakouts: price reaches a node, and the question is whether it bounces off. They define risk just past the level.
Swings
Settings that suit multi-day holds- Expirations one step wider than Front (To Friday or an exact count of 2), and look at VEX as well as GEX.
- Mark levels on 1H to 1D; use the lower intervals to watch how price behaves when it gets there.
- Match your Expirations and Nodes settings to your timeframe. Going from 5 to 10 nodes changes the picture a lot.
Confluence
Stacking independent reasons at one price- A dark-pool level that lines up with a King Node is the classic confluence traders look for.
- Flow into negative-gamma strikes above price can speed a move up. The same flow into a strong positive node tends to stall there (from the “Reading Flow on Atlas” article).
- Many traders rotate through the Flow filters rather than hunting for one “best” setting. Activity that shows up under several filters, on a node, is the kind they mark.
Using Replay to learn
Practice on past sessions- Use Random start and call the next level before you press play.
- Replay a day with Scroll as replay on, so the orbs you study are the ones you would have seen live.
Rule of thumb. Atlas tells you where the levels are. What price does at the level is the part you judge yourself.
Use it with other Skylit tools
Ask Talon
Why: get a plain-language read of the chart you are already looking at, using the same numbers you see. Where: Talon, on the Pro plan (see the Talon guide, “Who can use it”). Talon knows what is on your Atlas screen: the symbol, the interval, every pane in a multi-chart layout, whether you are viewing GEX, VEX or both, and which sidecars are open. When the Heatmap or Trinity sidecar is open, it also reads the positioning those panels show.
How it behaves:
- One symbol’s read at a time. In a layout with several panes, the read covers the focused pane. Ask about another symbol by name and Talon looks it up separately.
- Open a sidecar for the fullest answer. Without the Heatmap or Trinity sidecar open, Talon still knows the chart but has no on-screen positioning to quote, so it looks it up instead.
- “Mark these on the chart” is not offered on the Atlas page. That button draws Talon’s levels on the Talon canvas chart instead.
- Talon does not place, size or recommend trades.
Good to know
- Atlas is not a forecast. It shows positioning, flow and price together. It does not call direction and it is not a recommendation.
- Compare Atlas and the heatmap on the same setting. They use the same positioning data in different views. If the orbs and the heatmap disagree, the two are almost always set to different expirations. Set Expirations to Front to compare like for like.
- Check SPX price against another source. Some members have seen a gap between the SPX price on Atlas and on the SPX heatmap. If you work SPX levels to the point, confirm the price elsewhere.
- Derived levels move a little. On ES, NQ and SPXW, some levels are mapped from a related product. They drift slightly during the day as the two prices move apart (people call it “the wiggle”). A level that briefly disappears was hidden, not drawn in the wrong place.
- Projection and Replay are for planning and practice. Projection is a scenario, not a prediction. Replay and Scroll as replay are built to show only what was known at the time, and one good replay is one example, not proof.
- Routines are rules of thumb. The routines in this guide come from traders’ experience, not from tested results.
- Heavy layouts can lag. Several panes, sidecars and many indicators can slow the chart on phones and on Chrome for Windows.
If something looks wrong
What’s new
September 2026- Leaving Atlas from the menu. Picking another page in the menu while on Atlas, such as Heatmaps, now opens it on the first click, with no flicker back. See Where to find it.
- Atlas in the Heatseeker menu. Atlas now also appears under HEATSEEKER, on desktop and phone, so you can jump between the heatmap and the chart in one tap. See Where to find it.
- Talon canvas uses your chart settings. The Talon canvas chart now opens with your Atlas colors, candles, Dark Pool settings and interval, so it looks like the chart you know. See Ask Talon.
- Custom chart intervals. You can add your own minute or hour intervals, such as 7m or 90m. They save with your pane and layout for next time. See Set up the chart.
- Trinity sidecar stays centred. After you zoom the browser or resize the window, the Trinity sidecar now re-centres on the spot row instead of drifting off to one side. See Sidecars.
- Flow VWAP for everyone. Flow VWAP is now open to every Atlas member. You add it from the Add card in Settings, alongside the other indicators. See Indicators.
- Net Premium pane. Net Premium draws running net call and net put premium lines for the session, so you see which side options money is building on. See Indicators.
- Flow bar selection at the live edge. When you click the newest Flow bar, or end a range on it, the outline marking the Flow Bucket’s bars now stays visible. See Indicators.