Explanation of Atlases for Astrolog32 Explanation of Macros in A32 V2.04 + Astrolog's Reference Numbers Copyright Notice |
** T H E R E A D M E ** by Walter Pullen; updated for Astrolog32 by The Dodger |
Graphics features:
Graphic wheel chart.
Graphic bi-wheel comparison /
transit chart.
Graphic tri-wheels and quad-wheels.
Graphic aspect /
midpoint and relationship aspect / midpoint grids.
Graphic astro-graph chart
on a map of the world.
Graphic local horizon, polar horizon, Gauquelin wheel,
and orbit charts.
Graphic ephemeris tracking chart.
Graphic calendars and
biorhythms.
Dispositor graph chart.
Plot positions among the astronomical
constellations.
Smoothly animate charts through time at varying
rates.
Continuously update chart to current moment now.
Animate a rotating
globe.
Timed exposures for horizon and orbit charts.
Create PostScript
graphic files.
Create graphic X11 and Windows bitmap files.
Create Windows
metafiles.
Customization options:
Initialization file for default
settings.
Choose what transiting and natal planets to include in
charts.
Choose among 18 major and minor aspects, or define your
own.
Specify aspect orbs.
Specify the maximum orb allowed to a
planet.
Specify wider orbs for any planet.
Display zodiac positions to the
nearest second.
DMY & MDY date formats and 24 hour & am/pm time
formats.
Display locations in hours & minutes or 360 degree
form.
Customize interpretation strings.
Customize colors.
Define your
own orbital elements for planets.
Choose among graphic glyphs for certain
signs and planets.
Specify influence of planets and planets when
transiting.
Specify influence of houses and aspects.
Chart access
features:
Quick charts for the current moment now.
Save and load chart
time and place to file.
Save and load chart positions to file.
Save text
output directly to file.
Relocate charts.
Cast a chart a specified time
ahead of any chart.
System features:
Display text charts in Ansi
color.
Paging for when text charts are more than a screenful.
Access
environment variables.
Define macros for your most common operations.
Easy
to use menu and dialog interface in the Windows version.
For Astrolog32 V1.34, V1.34 CLI version, & Atlases: southville.net
For Astrolog32 V2.05, Atlases' bundles: astrolog32.altervista.org
For Astrolog32's 'Companion' guide: astrolog32.altervista.org/linked
For Astrolog32 V2.02, & some links: orionsoft.cz
The program folder called\main in the Astrolog32 install holds several readable files besides the programastrolog32.exe itself: they are:
KEY: * only in V2.0x releases.
* * V E R S I O N 5.40 H E L P F I L E * * by Walter Pullen |
THE LIST OF COMMAND SWITCHES |
DESCRIPTION OF EACH COMMAND SWITCH |
Astrolog (version 5.40) primary command
switches: |
This option displays a list exactly like the one given above on the screen. Note: Concerning the list itself, PC users are accustomed to seeing command switches with a leading slash "/" instead of a dash "-". To accommodate this, this list of options available does, if the program has been compiled for a PC, display all the switches with a leading "/" instead of a "-". (On Unix and other systems they will be displayed with the standard leading "-".)
-Hc: Display program credits and copyrights.This help switch displays a full page of credits, listing the names of those who programmed Astrolog or parts of it, and important copyright information and other legal items. Every time the program is invoked, the -Hc switch is mentioned to use to see this info.
-HC: Display names of zodiac signs and houses.The -HC switch will display a list of the 12 signs of the zodiac, and the 12 houses, listing their standard and traditional names. This is similar to switches like -HO or -HA below, in that it displays lists of things (objects, aspects, or in this case the signs) that Astrolog uses in its charts.
-HO: Display available planets and other celestial objects.Similar to the -HA option below, the -HO option will list the planets
and other celestial objects used by the program, and their numbers as recognized
by the -R restrictions (mentioned later). This list will also show the zodiac
signs that planets rule, fall in, are exalted in, and debilitated in. Stars are
printed in the list along with their azimuth, altitude, and brightness values.
Note that this list shows only those items that aren't restricted when its
displayed; if you want to show all 87 objects regardless of restriction status,
just use the -R1 switch to activate them all and combine it with -HO.
Concerning objects the program can do, Astrolog can do the position of
Lilith, often called the "Dark Moon". This Lilith is the point in space of one
focus of the Moon's elliptical orbit around the Earth (Earth itself being in the
other of the two), and not the asteroid or hypothetical planet by the same name.
Lilith is object number 17 in Astrolog, and in graphics charts its glyph is a
small circle with a forward slash through it. If preferred, one can use the -YXG
glyph selection switch (described later) to choose the "European" version of the
glyph which is like the glyph for the Moon but smaller and flipped horizontally.
Astrolog computes the position of Lilith as provided by the accurate
Placalc formula set. This means that the -b ephemeris switch (covered later)
needs to be in effect to get Lilith's positions. When the -b setting is off,
Astrolog will display the position of the South Node for object 17 instead. We
tweak the name of the object to be "S.Node", change its rulerships and
interpretation string appropriately, and change the graphics glyph to be the
standard "upside down horseshoe" (a third glyph selectable via -YXG), although
we won't automatically update everything again if you toggle the -b flag while
the program is running.
Astrolog can do the position of the East Point
as well, which is technically the same as the position of the Ascendant at the
equator for whatever time. This is object number 20 in Astrolog, and its
graphics glyph is a simple "EP" abbreviation.
The -HA command switch gives a list of all 18 supported aspects, their abbreviations as used in the aspect grids, their angles, and their orbs. It will list the number of each aspect in addition to all the other info (e.g. conjunct = 1, opposition = 2, etc.) so one can see what number to pass to the -A switch when changing the number of aspects used (see later). Finally, it will print a brief description of what each aspect glyph looks like. This is in case one doesn't know what aspects the weird symbols in the -g -X graphic displays are referring to.
-HF: Display names of astronomical constellations.This will display a text table of all the constellations, listing their traditional names, their astronomical abbreviations as used in the graphics above, their English meanings, and even their genitive or possessive form (e.g. "Lyra" is the name of the constellation, but the star Vega in it is called Alpha "Lyrae").
-HS: Display information about planets in the solar system.This is a another static table which will display some astronomical information about the main planets (and Earth's Moon) in a simple form. For each planet is shown its distance from the Sun (or Earth) in Astronomical Units (AU), its orbital period in Earth years, its diameter relative to the Earth (Earth being 1), its rotational period (i.e. day) in hours, its mass relative to the Earth (Earth being 1), its average density with respect to water (water being 1), the tilt of its axis with respect to its orbit, and finally the number of known moons or satellites it has. This table also includes Chiron and the four asteroids, at least for the distance from Sun, length of year, and diameter fields.
-HI: Display meanings of signs, houses, planets, and aspects.This will display the general meanings of each sign, each house, each planet, and each aspect, on the screen. This shows more or less the database the program uses to base its interpretations on (see the -I switch setting for charts later).
-He: Display all info tables together (-Hc-H-Y-HX-HC-HO-HA-HF-HS-HI).This switch will print out all ten of Astrolog's static table help listings, like what -e does for actual charts. Specifically, this will show the -Hc copyright screen, the -H switch list, the -Y obscure switch list, the -HX graphics key press list, the -HC sign and house list, the -HO object list, the -HA aspect list, the -HF constellation list, the -HS planet information list, and the -HI core interpretation list, for over 500 lines of informational output.
-Q: Prompt for more command switches after display finished.Usually when Astrolog finishes printing the specified chart or
charts, or when we leave a graphics screen mode, the program will terminate.
However, sometimes one wants to display or work with lots of charts or options,
which would normally cause them to have to invoke the program over and over
again from their shell, using many processes, and can be slow loading over and
over from a slow disk. Auto-termination is also bad when automatically starting
up the program in an X window or DOS box - once the program finishes, the
container will exit right away too, not allowing reading of the text charts. The
-Q switch causes the program to enter a looping mode environment where (after
the first chart is displayed) the user will automatically be prompted to enter a
new set of command switches (using the no SWITCHES interface described later)
which will be processed. This will go on and the program will run until you
enter "." on a line for the switches to really terminate it.
Program
errors which normally cause Astrolog to exit right away, will (unless "fatal"
errors) return the user back to this outer loop. What's more is that being in
the loop doesn't cause all the minor program variables to be reset every time.
The main things like what info to use and what charts to display must be
specified each time, but minor modes (such as the present -x harmonic factor)
won't, so say specify -x 5 once, and you will be casting fifth harmonic charts
until you specify otherwise or exit the loop, not having to include -x each
time.
This is just like -Q above except that the user will first be prompted for command switches right upon entering the program. Note that these will be in addition to whatever else was on the command line where the -Q0 itself was specified. This is mostly useful when running on a Windows system (see later) where one can have -Q0 as a default switch to pass to the program. Upon activation, the user will be in a loop with Astrolog asking for switches right away before proceeding to generate or prompt for any chart information.
-M <1-48>: Run the specified command switch macro.Astrolog has a feature to run "switch macros", or a whole command
line with one small switch. The -M switch takes one parameter, which is the
number of the macro to run. When encountered, the switches it represents will be
processed. This is similar to loading in a generic command file with -i, except
macros are limited to one command line. Macros however don't require separate
files, and may even call command files themselves with -i.
The switch
-M0 is the option that defines a macro. It takes two parameters: the index of
the macro to define, and a string representing the command line to assign to it.
(The command string probably needs to be in quotes to ensure it's treated as one
parameter to -M0, instead of many items which will get processed right away.)
There are 48 macro slots available to define or run. Macros may do anything and
even call or define other macros. It's possible to get in a infinite loop if you
make a macro (or command file) call or load itself; such cases aren't detected
and will make the program terminate with some unusual error.
Macros are
very powerful and their uses are nearly endless. A bunch can be defined in the
Here's another
example: Suppose you want a feature to bring up the chart of the spouse of
whoever's chart you are viewing at any time. You can define a special macro, say
in slot 5, in each of your chart info files which does a -i on the file of their
spouse, or does nothing if they're unmarried. Now when in graphics mode, you can
press 'F5' anytime and Astrolog will bring up the spouse's chart! You could
define a bunch of macros to set various color sets or aspect orbs and switch
among them quickly using the function keys. You could even make a simple chart
database by having each chart file load the next one in sequence in some macro,
and then cycle through your charts by running that macro in a -Q loop or from
the graphics screen.
This displays a list of available command switches, like the -H option but showing only "less common" switches that would clutter things up if they were in the main list, and are usually only specified in configuration files. Hence almost all of those switches begin with 'Y'.
Switches which determine the type of chart
to display: |
This is just a formal specification for the standard chart listing of the planetary positions. One will get this chart by default if they don't specify any other chart types, and they will get it along with everything else in the -e option (see below). Although it isn't necessary, it must be included if one wants this type of chart to be displayed along with some of the other chart types described below.
-v0: Like -v but express velocities relative to average speed.This switch is just like -v except that it modifies the planet
velocities fields slightly. (See later for a description of these velocity
fields.) The -v switch normally expresses velocity values as an *absolute*
quantity in degrees per day that the object appears to have moved through the
zodiac. This means that outer planets will generally always have lower values,
e.g. although a velocity of 0.010 degrees/day for fast moving Mercury means it's
about to turn retrograde, the same velocity value is normal for slow moving
Pluto. As it is useful to know when a planet is about to change direction, the
-v0 switch will divide the actual velocity values by how fast each planet moves
with respect to the Sun, meaning that all planets will have an average
*relative* velocity value of 1.000, and in all cases, a velocity of 2.000 means
the planet is moving twice as fast as normal, and one of 0.010 means the planet
is about to turn retrograde.
Note: The -v0 switch which expresses
planetary velocities relative to average speed has a known incompatibility will
cause some applying vs. separating aspect orbs to be inverted, i.e. displayed as
applying when the reverse is true or vice versa. This affects app/sep aspect
grids and aspect lists (-ga, -ma, and -D charts, but not the -T transit
influence charts). This is because the velocities are used to determine applying
vs. separating to see if one planet is overtaking another. The bug comes with
the program thinking that, for example, Pluto moving 2 times faster than normal,
will soon overtake Mars, slightly ahead of it in the zodiac, moving half normal
speed. When the values are expressed as absolute speed, it's apparent that the
outer planet Pluto always moves much slower than the more inner planet Mars even
when Mars is moving half normal speed. This problem is at least not likely to
come up much since only explicitly combining -v0 with -ga, -ma, or -D will cause
a problem.
Display of the chart in a nice wheel format is supported using the -w
switch. (If one of the houses gets too "full" of planets, the planet will be put
at the beginning of the next house.) The same chart header/footer information as is at
the top of the standard -v chart is printed in the middle of the wheel. Some
information in addition to this is shown, which is: (1) the day of the week that
the date falls on, (2) the Universal Time (UT) of the time of the chart being
cast (like GMT in the 24 hour clock), (3) the sidereal time for the chart cast,
where sidereal time is vaguely similar to UT except 0:00 for it is approximately
when 0 Aries crosses the meridian, as opposed to when the Sun crosses the Nadir
for UT, (4) whether the zodiac system is set to tropical or sidereal, and
whether the planetary positions are geocentric, heliocentric, or centered around
some other body, and (5) the Julian day corresponding to the date and time of
the chart. This chart will automatically exclude a house object from being
listed if its position is the same as the cusp composing the wheel.
Note that this switch takes an optional parameter to specify the size
in text rows of each house printed. By default this is four, but one may
increase (realize this will make the chart require more than 24 lines to print)
or decrease (don't know why you would want to, but you can) this value to their
preference. The parameter may range from 1 to 10, and with this you can nicely
generate a text wheel chart with all 87 objects in it, without overflowing all
the houses.
In the -w text wheel option, the objects in each house are printed from top to bottom in order from earliest in the house to latest. This looks good except for in houses 5..8 where this would appear backwards (e.g. a planet having just entered the 6th house from the 5th would be displayed right under the Descendant.) Therefore the objects from houses 4 through 9 are reversed and printed in order from bottom to top, making a more flowing looking wheel chart. If however, one always wants each house to be filled from its top to bottom regardless of which house, replace the -w with the -w0 switch.
-g: Display aspect and midpoint grid among planets.Aspects and midpoint display are supported: Invoke as astrolog -g and a rectangular grid showing the midpoint locations for each planet, and showing if any aspects are present and how accurate they are, is displayed. The planets are labeled down the main diagonal of the grid, with the aspects to the lower left and the midpoints in the upper right. This is of course often used along with the -A* switches. Both the aspect orbs and midpoints are displayed to the nearest minute, and on the main diagonal (or edges if a relationship aspect grid) is displayed the sign and degree of the planet in question in addition to the planet name itself.
-g0: Like -g but flag aspect configurations (e.g. Yod's) too.Search through the aspect grid for major aspect configurations, including Grand Trines, T-Squares, Grand Crosses, Yod's, Cradles, and Stelliums, with the -g0 option. (In a Stellium, three objects must all be conjunct with each other; while in a Cradle, four objects form three sextiles forming a chain of sextiles half way around the zodiac.) This option will produce the same aspect grid that -g displays, but afterwards will go through the grid and list any of these aspect configurations and what objects are forming them. (Of course, to see any Yod's, one has to -A 6 or more so that Inconjuncts will be included in the aspect grid.)
-g0: For comparison charts, show midpoints instead of aspects.For relationship aspect grids, the -g0 switch will display a midpoint grid instead of an aspect grid between the planets in the two charts e.g. "-r0 chart1 chart2 -g0". (See later for descriptions of the relationship charts.)
-ga: Like -g but indicate applying instead of difference orbs.Ability to determine whether an aspect is applying or separating (is about to happen or just happened) is included in the -g option. Normally the aspect orbs are flagged as being '+' or '-' based on whether they are greater or less than the exact amount (e.g. a 91 degree Square has a +1 degree orb while a 89 degree one a -1 orb.) If one, however, invokes the -g option as -ga instead, an orb printed as 'a' will indicate an applying aspect while an orb with 's' a separating one. (To estimate applying vs. separating, the program examines the planetary positions and their relative velocities at the time in question.)
-gp: Like -g but generate parallel and contraparallel aspects.Astrolog can do parallel and contraparallel aspects. Two planets are parallel when they have the same declination with respect to the equator, and are contraparallel when their declinations are the same amount but on opposite sides of the equatorial plane. The -gp switch will turn on the aspect grid just like the -g option, but will also set it so the grid contains parallel and contraparallel instead of normal aspects. This feature works for the -g aspect and relationship aspect grids, and the graphics versions of them. The graphic glyph for the parallel aspect is two vertical parallel lines, while the glyph for contraparallel are two sets of two lines crossing each other, like a tic-tac-toe grid. In -gp affected charts, the parallel takes the place of conjunction, and contraparallel the place of opposition; all aspect orb settings affecting conjunction and opposition will affect the -gp aspects in the same way. (Note that the best orb for parallel aspects is only a degree or so, hence the default conjunction orb will likely be too high, and should be decreased with the -Ao switch for -gp grids.) The -A and -RA aspect selection switches will also affect -gp, but all aspects beyond the first two are ignored as only the parallel and the contraparallel aspect are considered.
-a: Display list of all aspects ordered by influence.Aspects may be displayed in a nice ordered list, instead of only in the -g aspect grid. Use the -a switch and get a list of every aspect from the aspect grid printed out one per line. The order in which they are printed is based on the total "power" in the aspect, i.e. the influence of the two planets in question, the aspect in question, and the orb. The same info and data from the -j influence charts (see later) are used here, so changing any default influences there will affect this ordering. The two planets are printed, the aspect they make, their orb, and then the power of the aspect used in ordering. Any power number more than 10 is a very major aspect. An exact Sun Moon conjunction can exceed 25. So, if you want to know, say, if that exact Mars Jupiter conjunction is more powerful than that wide Sun Moon sextile, try a -a chart and find out what Astrolog's opinion is.
-a0: Like -a but display aspect summary too.This is just like the -a aspect list ordered by influence chart, except that summary information will be displayed afterward. The sum of all the aspect powers and their average is printed, the total number of aspects of each type is printed, and the total number of aspects to each planet is printed.
-a[0]a: Like -a but indicate applying and separating orbs.This is a shorthand way to bring up the -a or -a0 sorted aspect chart, with the aspect orbs shown as applying or separating, instead of positive or negative offsets to the exact aspect size. This is like how -ga does the same thing with the -g aspect grid switch. (To get the functionality of -aa without this, one can use the -ga switch itself along with -a, and then include -g by itself again, e.g. "-a -ga -g", to toggle the aspect grid back off but leave the applying vs. separating setting on!)
-a[0]p: Like -a but do parallel and contraparallel aspects.The -a aspect list can be made to list all parallel and contraparallel aspects if invoked as -ap or -a0p, turning on the same flag as the -gp switch above. When in effect, the parallel aspect setting will also affect -D and -T transit influence charts, having them show their aspects in parallel too.
-m: Display all object midpoints in sorted zodiac order.True midpoint charts are supported in addition to the midpoints that can be seen in the -g aspect grid. Use the -m switch and get a list of all midpoints printed out sorted in zodiac order. This will show both the actual midpoint location, as well as the angular difference between the two objects displayed to the nearest minute. So if you want to see, say, if any important midpoint is close to your Sun, this is a much easier chart to use than scrutinizing the midpoint/aspect grid.
-m0: Like -m but display midpoint summary too.This is just like the -m midpoint list ordered by zodiac position chart, except that summary information for it will be displayed afterward. The average number of degrees spanned between each planet pair is printed, and the total number of midpoints in each zodiac sign is printed.
-ma: Like -m but show aspects from midpoints to planets as well.Aspects to midpoints are supported with the -ma switch. This feature will do the same as the -m midpoint list chart, except in addition to listing each midpoint, a sublist of each aspect in effect from a natal planet to the position of that midpoint, will be shown after it. The orb of the aspect will be printed too, where the orb will be shown as either wide or narrow, or applying or separating, based on the value of the -ga or -aa applying aspects setting.
-Z: Display planet locations with respect to the local horizon.The text display switch -Z prints out where each object is on the local horizon in terms of altitude and azimuth. For each object, the following is displayed: Its altitude on the local horizon from +90 degrees (straight up) to -90 degrees (straight down), and its azimuth from 0..360 degrees, where 0 = due east, 90 = north, 180 = west, 270 = south. To make visualizing the azimuth easier, an "azimuth vector" with a N/S component and a W/E component is displayed, e.g. (1.00s 0.33w) means that the object is mainly south, with its true angle being formed by an vector component west that's 1/3 the strength of the south component, i.e. the object is about 18 degrees west of south. This along with the altitude should make it easy to physically point to where any planet is at any moment, making it easy to locate planets in the night sky. This feature can also be used to determine the times that a planet rises and sets. Also displayed are altitude and azimuth differences between each object and the Sun and Moon, first showing the number of degrees that the Sun/Moon is "ahead" (or farther east in the zodiac) of the object in question, and then the number of degrees that the Sun/Moon is above the object in question. This feature can be used to roughly predict eclipses! Both the Sun and Moon span about 0.5 degrees in the sky, therefore if both the azimuth and altitude differences are < 0.5 (or 1.0 if the difference is between the Sun and Moon themselves) then the object in question is probably being occulted somewhat by the Sun/Moon. Note that there are three types of planetary position displays: Right ascension and declination showing the object's position with respect to the stars, longitude and latitude showing where on the Earth the object is straight up (as in the astro-graph zenith locations), and finally azimuth and altitude showing the positions of the object relative to the local horizon.
-Z0: Like -Z but express coordinates relative to polar center.This will do a text chart just like the -Z local horizon switch above except that it will print the location of each planet in prime vertical coordinates, instead of altitude and azimuth. Prime vertical coordinates are measured with its "azimuth" around the 360 degree circle, with 0 degrees due east on the local horizon, going down with 90 degrees straight down, 180 degrees due west and so on; declination "altitudes" are measured with positive values toward the north and negative toward the south.
-Zd: Search day for object local rising and setting times.One can display the rising and setting times of the Sun, Moon, and planets with this feature. Specifically, when this switch is included, the program will, for the entire day specified in the chart information, display whenever a planet rises (specifically conjuncts the local horizon while in the eastern hemisphere), sets (conjuncts horizon in west), reaches its zenith point (or specifically conjuncts the meridian while in the southern hemisphere, i.e. is due south from the observer), and reaches its nadir point (conjuncts meridian in north). Note that some stars may be high or low enough that they will never rise or set, but instead will just "zenith" or "nadir" twice in a day as they spin around the pole.
-S: Display x,y,z coordinate positions of planets in space.Solar system space based charts are available with the -S switch, which give the astronomical positions of each planet in terms of x, y, and z coordinates. Although not directly useful astrologically, it does give one a good view of how the planets actually were positioned at the time in question. For example, normal astrology doesn't make the distinction between the four different "forms" of say, a Mercury Venus Conjunction, i.e. they can either be Conjunct on the near side of the Sun, Conjunct on the far side of the Sun, or one can be on one side and the other on the other side. When the chart is actually displayed, for each body the following information is printed: The relative angle of the planet with respect to the central body, i.e. its zodiac position converted to the appropriate number from 0..360. This is followed by the x, y, and z coordinate positions of the object, in astronomical units from the central body. The x-axis increases in the direction of 0 degrees Aries (tropical zodiac), the y-axis increases in the direction of 0 degrees Cancer, and the z-axis is with respect to the Earth's orbit (meaning that the Sun and Earth always have a z-axis value of 0.0). Finally the overall length from the central body in AU is printed, which is just the diagonal as indicated by the x, y, z vectors. (The Earth and Sun are of course always about 1.0 AU from each other.) The Moon circles the Earth and isn't a part of the solar system proper; therefore, it is never in these charts. The -e everything option will include this chart in its listing of all the chart displays. (Note that the Earth doesn't have a formal object index of its own. Hence there's no real way to directly restrict it from these -S space charts either in text or graphics format. Only the -R0 (and -R1) restrict everything switches will affect this body, as they do all the others.)
-l: Display Gauquelin sectors for each planet in chart.Astrolog supports Gauquelin sector charts. These are based on the
work of Michael Gauquelin, with a sector chart basically a type of wheel chart
where the planets are placed in their appropriate Gauquelin sector instead of
zodiac sign at a given time. Sectors are numbered from 1 to 36, and indicate
proportions of time between rising and setting. Sectors 1 through 18 are above
the horizon, and 19 through 36 are below. When a planet rises it goes from
sector 36 to 1, when 1/18th of the time until the moment it sets has passed it
enters sector 2, and so on. A sector chart can be thought of as somewhat related
to a standard wheel chart, except that it's "time based" instead of "location
based". In interpretation, certain sectors are known to be powerful. These
sectors are called plus zones and are the sectors immediately before and a bit
after the four angles. For a more detailed account on interpretation, see books
such as Gauquelin's "Cosmic Influences on Human Behavior". To bring up a sector
chart, use the -l command switch.
The text mode version of this chart is
similar to the standard -v listing. The chart info time and place will be
displayed, after which, for each planet, the sector it's in will be displayed,
with a "+" indicating a plus zone, and a "-" indicating such is not the case
(where with colored text active plus zones will be in red and minus dark green).
Then as in the standard listing, the planet's house, zodiac location,
retrogradation status, equatorial latitude, and velocity will be printed.
Finally will be displayed two alternative sector locations assuming systems
where sectors go from 1 to 18, and from 1 to 12 (where for example the beginning
of sector 36 will map to sector location 18.5, and 12.75, respectively). After
this, summary information will be displayed. The number and percentage of
planets that fall in plus zones (as well as the number and percentage of plus
zones period) will be printed, and for each of the 36 sectors, the number of
planets that fall in it and whether it's a plus zone will be indicated.
Calculating correct Gauquelin sector positions is based on rising and setting times, which require searches, hence computing the chart takes quite a bit longer than regular wheels. It's like the -Zd rising and setting list, where increasing the -d searching divisions value increases the accuracy and calculation time here too. To cut calculation time down to that of ordinary charts, one may do a reasonable approximation of sector positions based on how far each planet has progressed through a corresponding house (specifically house cusps divided using Placidus). To compute charts in this fast manner, invoke the -l switch as -l0.
-j: Display astrological influences of each object in chart.Another chart type is available - interpretation of influences. This
is the simplest part of the general interpretation ability of the program. What
this part does is calculate the relative "power" of each planet's placement,
giving a general idea of the prominent areas of a chart. When such a chart is
printed, each planet is given a point value, larger numbers indicating more
strength. Each planet's strength is divided between two fields: the positioning
in and of itself, and the power of the aspects it makes with the other planets.
In addition to each field, the total of these two areas is printed, as well as
the relative percentage of the planet in question with respect to all the
planets combined. Each planet gets a ranking for its positioning, aspects, and
total power as well, with the strongest getting #1, the next strongest #2, etc.
The -e option will include this chart along with all the others as well in it's
listing of all the chart displays.
To determine the strength of the
positioning of a planet, various things are taken into account: 1) The power of
a planet in and of itself, e.g. the Sun and Moon are more powerful then the
other planets. 2) The house placement of a planet, e.g. a planet in the 1st
house is more powerful than one in the 2nd. 3) Whether a planet is in the sign
it rules or is exalted in, e.g. Jupiter in Sag results in more power to Jupiter.
4) Whether a planet is in the house corresponding to the sign it rules or is
exalted in, e.g. Jupiter in the 9th house. 5) Planets get more power if the
signs they rule are occupied, e.g. a bunch of stuff in Aquarius gives more power
to Uranus. 6) Planets get more power if the houses they rule are occupied, e.g.
a bunch of stuff in the 11th house gives power to Uranus. 7) Finally, planets
get power according to what houses the cusps of which fall in the signs they
rule, i.e. the ruler of the Ascendant (and to less extent the Midheaven, and so
on) gets lots of influence. Determining the strength of a planet's aspects is
much easier, and is basically composed of the sum of the strength of each aspect
the planet makes. Taken into account are: 1) The influence of the planet being
aspected to, e.g. Sun conjunct Jupiter gives more influence to Jupiter than
Mercury conjunct Jupiter would. The planet's placement as described above plays
a role, too, e.g. Venus opposition Mars in Aries gives more influence to Venus
that it would be if Mars were in Taurus. 2) The influence of the aspect itself,
e.g. Oppositions are more powerful then Sextiles. 3) Finally the orb of the
aspect, i.e. exact aspects are more powerful than wide ones. (The influence of
the orb varies linearly from max power at exact to zero power at the limit of
the orb - sorry Maggie M. and Mark K. - no complex aspect wave functions, at
least for this version :)
Special thanks goes to Mark K. who initially
presented this idea of interpreting overall influences to me. I basically just
took his ideas, polished them a bit, and put it into the code. Interestingly,
while programming this feature, I had a dream about him, in which he elaborated
upon some of the ideas and even gave me suggestions for some of the planets'
default power values (astral visitation?) And, while on the subject, I've had a
couple of other Astrolog dreams; I had one neat one while working on the -h
feature (described later) about a far distant future version of Astrolog that
could actually teleport one to the places which they cast charts for :)
The -j planet influences in a chart feature can be expanded to include signs as well. Invoke it as -j0 instead of just -j, and in addition to getting the influence of each planet in a chart, one will get the influence of each sign in the chart as well. To determine sign influence, we use the planet powers already determined; a sign gets influence if: (1) There is a planet in it, (2) there is a planet in the house it corresponds to, and (3) if any planet that rules or co-rules it is in the chart. For example, with my 11th house Venus in Sagittarius, for me: (1) Sagittarius gets more power because Venus is in it, (2) Aquarius gets more power because Venus is in the 11th, and (3) Libra and Taurus get power because Venus itself rules these signs. The exact power given is based on the total influence of Venus already determined. Any sign that has over about 175 points or 20% of the total is a really powerful and a fundamental part of the psyche. We also sum up the influences of all the signs (which will logically total up to the sum of all the planets), and display the influence of each element as well, and each mode as well, all this being perhaps a more accurate version of the element table in the -v chart.
-L [<step>]: Display astro-graph locations of planetary angles.The '-L' option will take the standard chart information and generate the astro-graph positions of the planets. In other words, this does the exact same thing that Jim Lewis' Astro*Carto*Graphy maps do. It will display the longitude of where on the Earth at the time in question each object was on the midheaven and on the nadir, and the latitude of where the planets actually appeared at zenith. Also, for latitude increments of 5 degrees, the longitude of where the objects appeared on the ascendant and descendant is displayed. For text screens, one can pass an optional parameter to this -L (or -L0) option to change the default latitude step rate at which the Ascendant and Descendant lines are computed. Again, this value is by default 5 degrees, although one can may increase or decrease it to any integer (subject to the restriction that the number 160 is divisible by it.)
-L0 [..]: Like -L but display list of latitude crossings too.Determination of latitude crossing points is included in the astro-graph routines! The -L0 option will do the same thing as the -L option, except that after displaying the longitude and latitude locations of the Asc/Desc/MC/IC lines, it will then search among the lines and display (in order from farthest North to farthest South) the latitude of any points where lines cross each other. This includes the curvy Asc/Desc lines crossing the straight MC/IC lines as well as cases where different Asc/Desc lines cross themselves. And unlike Jim Lewis' Astro*Carto*Graphy, Astrolog will also display the longitude of the crossing (useful for Asc/Desc crossings) in addition to the latitude (as well allowing more planetary bodies to be included in the scan, and going farther North and South than Jim Lewis' printouts go.) Note however, that there is presently a small (very rare) minor omission glitch in the code, where if a crossing is within a couple of degrees of 180 deg W/E, it may not be displayed.
-K: Display a calendar for given month.The -K switch generates a simple calendar for the month specified in the current chart. This is a standard type of chart generatable from a date so the -e everything switch includes this -K chart along with all the others. Note that this is technically a non-astrological chart, but generic calendars are useful and easy to generate with all of Astrolog's date determination features, so the option to create them using Astrolog is included. The calendars are compact, with one text row per week. The day specified in the current chart will be highlighted in green assuming -k Ansi color is active, e.g. "-n -K" will generate a chart for this month, with the number of today's date highlighted.
-Ky: Like -K but display a calendar for the entire year.The -Ky switch is just like -K except that it will generate a calendar for the whole year. All twelve months will be displayed on the screen, each just like the individual monthly calendars above but printed in four rows of three months each.
-d [<step>]: Print all aspects and changes occurring in a day.The -d option will take the standard chart information, and for the
day in question, display the exact times of all aspects that occur. This is just
like the aspects-per-day as displayed in Jim Maynard's Celestial Guide books.
(Displayed in local time as defined by the default zone, with accuracy based on
the searching divisions setting, described below.) This will tell any time two
planets make aspects with each other, a planet changes its sign, or a planet
goes retrograde or direct. Both the -d (and -t listed later) options will
display the signs that any planets aspecting each other are in, in addition to
the aspect itself (e.g. instead of just "Jupiter Trine Uranus", we have "Jupiter
(Vir) Tri (Cap) Uranus". If a particular object is going retrograde, then its
sign will be displayed in brackets instead of parentheses, and if an object is
about to or has just gone retrograde or direct, then its sign will be in
<>'s.
This switch accepts an optional accuracy parameter, a value
which tells how many "segments" we should divide each day or whatever, when
doing these aspect searches. More segments is slower but can be more accurate by
a few minutes. This command line change of the step rate can also be done for
other charts such as the -t transit search by using the switch toggle feature to
turn -d off but still leave the divisions value set, e.g. "-d 100 -d -t" will
set the value to 100 but not actually display the -d chart. Or better yet just
use the colon switch prefix to not affect the -d setting at all, e.g. ":d 100
-t". In general, I suggest this value be set to 24 for Unix systems and 8 for
PC's, but it is easy to experiment to see what is best for the speed of your
computer. One may increase this value up to 2880 (if they don't mind the wait)
which will mean a chart every 30 seconds for -d aspect in day charts and one
every 15 minutes for -t transit search charts.
The -d option can search the entire month for aspects between planets if one so desires. Specifying it as -dm instead of just -d will go through the entire month instead of just the current day. (Combining this one with -R allows searching for important aspects, sign changes, etc.)
-dy: Like -d but print all aspects for the entire year.The -d option can search the entire given year for events as well, if it's specified as -dy instead of just -d or -dm.
-dY <years>: Like -d but search within a number of years.The -d search may also do a range of years all at once. Invoke the switch as -dY, and give a parameter indicating the number of years to span, and it will be done, starting with the year in the current chart. For example, to display the times of all New and Full moons for the rest of the century (1998 through 2000), do "astrolog -n -dY 3 -R0 sun moo -A opp". (This is similar to the -EY and -tY features which also allow doing a range of years in addition to a single year or month.)
-dp <month> <year>: Print aspects within progressed chart.Another progression feature allows determining aspect times of progressed planets among themselves. The -dp <month> <year> switch will, like the -d option, display times of aspects and sign changes, for the time around the chart in question, except that they will be progressed throughout the month specified. Progressed planets move very slowly ("year for a day") so therefore there will usually be, if any, only a couple of aspects in a given month. Also, since they move so slow, the accuracy is cut down, so the dates given are probably only accurate about to the nearest day, in spite of the times given to the minute. Note that Astrolog can scan for aspects of: transiting planets among themselves (-d switch), transiting planets to natal planets (-T switch), progressed planets to natal planets (-Tp), and progressed planets among themselves (-dp). Only thing Astrolog can't directly do is do progressed planets to transiting planets, although that may change in a future version :)
-dpy <year>: Like -dp but search for aspects within entire year.Since progressed planets move so slow and only a few aspects in a progressed chart will appear each month, one might want to instead scan the whole year. To do this, use the -dpy switch, which takes only one parameter for the year. This switch is consistent in format to how with the -T and -E switches one specifies an entire year.
-dpY <year> <years>: Like -dp but search within number of years.Related to above, the -dp option may also be done for a range of years. Invoke the switch as -dpY, and pass in not only the year to search within as with -dpy, but the number of years to scan from then. For example, do display the times of all aspects within your progressed chart for the next decade, do "astrolog -i yourchartfile -dpY 1998 10".
-dp[y]n: Search for progressed aspects in current month/year.The -dp progression event search option can be invoked as -dpn to search the current month, or -dpyn to search the entire current year. For example, if I want to search for the exact times of all aspects in my natal chart, progressed to any time this month, I simply do "-i mychartfile -dpn".
-D: Like -d but display aspects by influence instead of time.This switch will display a chart listing all aspects in effect within the chart in question, in order by influence based on their power when transiting. This chart focuses upon and gives precedence to aspects of outer planets with each other, as opposed to common inner planet configurations. For example, at the time in early January 1994 the most influential aspects in effect were the Uranus Neptune conjunction and the Saturn Pluto square. This chart is very much like the format of the -a aspect list chart, except that we are using the transit as opposed to natal influences of the planets. The -a chart is most appropriate for a person's natal chart, in that the inner planets are focused upon, such as a Sun Moon square will be near the top of the list. This -D chart is more appropriate for times as opposed to people, since it focuses upon rare outer planet configurations. This chart is also very similar to the -T transit influence chart, in that it shows the aspect, applying or separating orb, and power of the event with its present orb, except that this does influences of transiting planets among themselves as opposed to aspects to a natal chart. If you want to see what major events are coming up, and don't want things such as Uranus Neptune conjunctions to "sneak by", use this chart and watch the configuration gradually rise to the top of the list as its orb narrows over time. This chart may be combined with others and is included in the -e everything switch.
-E: Display planetary ephemeris for given month.The -E option will generate a quick ephemeris of the planet positions
each day for the month indicated in the given chart, as taken from the standard
interface. This is useful if you just want to see an overview of what's
happening some month in the sky. Any dots after a planet location in the list
indicate the planet was retrograde at the time that day. For example, to see the
ephemeris for someone's birth month, one can do the convenient "-i chartfile
-E", or to see the ephemeris for this month, do "-n -E" (see -i and -n options
later). The -E text ephemeris switch may be combined with the -gp or -ap
parallel aspects feature to generate an ephemeris of ecliptic latitudes (or
equatorial declinations if the -sr flag is in effect) instead of the normal
zodiac longitudes.
Note: The ephemeris listings obtain the time (and
time zone) to cast each day's chart for (e.g. noon, midnight) from the chart
information given it, instead of always defaulting to something like midnight in
the default time zone. This is a bit more flexible since one may want to specify
a noon or 6:00am or whatever ephemeris which wouldn't be possible otherwise. The
-qm <month> <year> switch (see later) always uses midnight for the
time and the default for the time zone, so when using this switch with -E, the
results will be a midnight ephemeris in this default zone. However, something
like -i yourchart -E to do an ephemeris for your birth month will display the
positions each day at your birthtime instead of at midnight.
To display an ephemeris for all twelve months in an entire year, invoke the -E switch as -Ey. For example, to get an ephemeris for all of last year, one can do "-qy 1995 -Ey" (see -qy and -qm options below).
-EY <years>: Display planetary ephemeris for a number of years.The -E ephemeris list feature may also do an ephemeris for a range of years all at once. Invoke the switch as -EY, and pass a parameter indicating the number of years to span with the ephemeris, and it will be done, starting with the year in the current chart. For example, to do an ephemeris for all this century from 1900 through 1999, do "astrolog -qy 1900 -EY 100".
-e: Print all charts together (i.e. -v-w-g0-a-m-Z-S-j0-L0-K-d-D-E).There are thirteen main different formats of chart display available: The standard listing of planet positions which you get without any switches or with the -v option, the house wheel you get with -w, the aspect/midpoint grid you get with -g, and the charts generated with the -a, -m, -Z, -S, -j, -L, -K, -d, -D, and -E switches. The -e "everything" option will display the chart in all thirteen of these formats for about 1200 lines and 75K bytes of text! Note that one can even include the -t and/or -T transit options below and include yet a couple more chart formats in the list (however transits require a time parameter to do transits for so they aren't really a single chart display and hence aren't included in -e by default).
-t <month> <year>: Compute all transits to natal planets in month.The '-t <month> <year>' option will scan the entire month
specified, and print out any transits that happen, in that month, to the planet
positions as listed in the current chart as taken from the standard interface.
There will be often be quite a few events, even though fast moving objects like
the Moon aren't looked at by default (unless specified in the default parameter
file or with the -RT switch), so you might want to use this with the -R option
to limit this to just certain planets. The times are displayed in the local time
zone, and are generally accurate to within a half hour or so, where accuracy can
be increased by upping the value in the -d searching divisions setting; try
doing it for your birth month and your own chart - all planets should conjunct
their natal positions at about the time of your birth. To determine transits to
natal house cusps other than the Asc and MC, i.e. when does a planet change
house in your natal chart, include the -C switch described elsewhere. See the
-RT option, as well as the -YC "smart cusps" default, described later, for
options which directly affect this feature.
Note that even transiting
house cusps (and other fast moving objects like the Part of Fortune, Vertex, and
East Point) may be included in these transit to natal searches. (To activate
transiting cusp objects use the -RT switch.) This allows one to determine the
time of events such as when the Ascendant today conjuncts your natal Sun. Note
that as the house cusps travel through all 360 degrees of the zodiac during the
day, a cusp will make a transit roughly 30 times as often as even the fast
moving Moon, the Moon itself making transits 12 times as often as planets like
the Sun. So realize you may get a flood of information, and hence probably do
want to restrict all planets and aspects you're not interested in. Note also
that to get accurate times for transiting cusp events, you probably want a high
value for the -d searching divisions setting (I recommend at least 200) which
means longer calculations.M
Determining dates of transits of progressed planets to natal planets can be done with the -tp <month> <year> option. This is just like the -t option, except that the exact aspects of progressed planets (rather than transiting planets) to the planets in the chart are displayed. Progressions occur much less often than transits, and there will only be a few, if any, in a given month, so one might to invoke this as -Tpy, as described below.
-tr <month> <year>: Compute all returns in month for chart.This switch is a quick and convenient way to compute solar, lunar, and other returns. As a return is when a transiting object conjuncts its natal position, returns are findable using the generic -t transit to natal search. However to only display returns with it and not every transit, one has to restrict aspects to just the conjunction, and restrict objects to just the one you're interested in. (But even that will still show things in addition to returns if more than one object is unrestricted, e.g. with just Sun and Moon you'll still get Sun to Moon conjunctions and vice-versa.) The solution is this return feature, which (without altering your aspect or object restrictions any) works just like the -t switch, but displays only returns in the transit list, i.e. conjunctions between a transiting planet and that same planet in the natal chart.
-t[p]y: <year>: Compute transits/progressions for entire year.To display transits for an entire year, invoke the -t switch as -ty (-tpy for progressions), which only takes one parameter, the year. For example, "-i chartfile -ty 1998".
-t[p]Y: <year> <years>: Compute transits for a number of years.One may also search an arbitrary number of years at once for transits. One uses the -tY <year> <years> switch like the -ty <year> switch above, except that -tY takes an extra parameter for how many years to search. For example, -tY 1998 10 will search the ten years from 1998 through 2007 for whatever transits. With a negative value for the years to scan, it will start that many years before the given year, e.g. -tY 1998 -10000 will scan the previous 100 centuries for transits, starting with 8002 B.C.! Note that this switch may also be invoked as "-tYn <years>", in which case it will start from the current year and be an equivalent shorthand to "-tY 1998 <years>" for this year at least.
-t[py]n: Compute transits to natal planets for current time now.This feature is a quick shorthand way to generate transits for the current month. For example, instead of "astrolog -i chartfile -t 4 1998", one can do "astrolog -i chartfile -tn". To do transits for the entire current year, invoke it as "-tyn".
-T <month> <day> <year>: Display transits ordered by influence.The -T switch is a transit influence chart. Given a date, it will
take the transiting planets on that date, and determine how they interact with
the generic natal chart specified with -i or however. The information will be
printed as a list of transits, sorted in order from most significant to least
significant. For each transit in effect, the transiting and natal planets (and
the signs they are in) are displayed, along with the aspect and the orb, and
whether the transit is applying and going to happen in the future, or just
passed exactness and the orb is separating. The computer computed power value of
each transit will be printed too - anything over 100 is a very major transit.
Any transit that's a return, i.e. a transiting planet conjuncting the same one
in the natal chart, will be flagged with a capital "R" at the end of the
line.
The things which affect how Astrolog computes the influence of a
transit are: The power of the object that's doing the transit, e.g. transiting
Pluto conjunct your natal Ascendant is much more powerful than the transiting
Moon conjunct your Ascendant. The power of the object being transited affects
the power too (but not as much as the transiter) e.g. Jupiter transiting your
Sun is more powerful than Jupiter transiting an asteroid. Finally, the orb plays
a role as well, in that a transit that will be exact in a couple of days from
the given date passed to -y is more powerful than one won't be exact for another
month. Note that the power of a planet when transiting is different than its
influence in the natal chart: Although Sun conjunct Moon is more powerful in a
natal chart than Saturn conjunct Moon, when transiting, Saturn transiting Moon
is much more influential than Sun transiting Moon. Hence there are two lists of
object influence values in the
Related to the -tr switch above, the -T switch can be invoked
as -Tr, which is the same as the general transit influence chart, but will only
display aspects between a transiting planet and the same natal planet. (Note
unlike -tr it will include aspects other than the conjunction.)
This
switch is in compliment to the -t transit search list, and you may find this one
more useful. The -t chart prints the times when a transit is exact, which is
useful to know, but doesn't really help when you want to know when a transit
enters orb enough to be significant, and it won't flag a major year long transit
that will be exact next month, listing it among a bunch of less significant
aspects for the following month. With -T, you can see a major transit first
enter orb at the bottom of the list, and then slowly rise to the top as it
becomes more exact through the days. And you can answer the question as to which
is more influential: say an exact transit of Mars to a minor house cusp, or a
major transit of Saturn to an angle that's still a month away from
exactness.
Also notice the resemblance between -T and the -r0 -a
combination. Both display aspects ordered by influence. In fact, "-i chart -Tn"
will look almost identical to "-y chart -a", except that -T is designed and
formated for doing transits to a particular chart. (Doing -T will always use
applying vs. separating orbs, generate powers using the transit influences, and
allow the transiting and natal planets to be restricted separately with -RT and
-R.) Astrolog allows transit charts to be done between transiting planets and
natal planets, as well as charts among transiting planets to themselves, both of
which can be expressed as searches for exact times, or displays of influences of
each aspect at a particular time, as summarized in the following organized
list:
The -T transit influence switch can also (like the -t transit search) display all aspects between progressed planets and natal planets in influence order, if it's invoked as -Tp instead of just -T. This works like -T in every way except that a switch combination like "-i mychart -Tp 4 30 1998" will display aspects between my natal planets, and those in my natal chart progressed to the end of the month, and their influence and orbs at that time, instead of between my natal planets and the actual positions of the planets at the end of March.
-T[p]n: Display transits ordered by influence for current date.The -Tn switch is a shorthand way to pass the current date today and time now to the -T switch. If you want to see what transits are most affecting your natal chart presently, just do "-i yourchart -Tn".
-P [<parts>]: Display list of Arabic parts and their positions.Astrolog has the ability to display the positions of 177 Arabic
parts! The "ARABIC" compile time option in astrolog.h may be commented to leave
this feature out if you don't want it. Display a chart with the -P switch to
show each part and its position, one per line for the chart in question. The
listing contains five columns: First is the full name of the part, i.e. the part
of whatever. Second is its position in the zodiac (which will be shown to the
nearest arc second when the -b0 setting is active). Third is the house the
location falls in.
Fourth is the formula used to compute the part, given
so one knows what the program is doing and to aid in interpretation. The formula
is expressed in the form <term1> - <term2> + <term3>. Also
included is a flag indicating whether the formula should be flipped for night
births, i.e. charts where the Sun is below the horizon in houses 1 through 6.
For night charts where the flip status is "Y", the real calculation done is
<term1> + <term2> - <term3>. Each <term> consists of an
"object" plus a "modifier". The object is usually given as the abbreviation of a
planet, or it may be a number from 1 to 12 indicating that house cusp. The
object may also be "For" or "Spi" meaning it's the position of the Part of
Fortune or Part of Spirit, or it may reference an actual degree in the zodiac.
The modifier indicates how to get the actual position of the term from the
object. It's usually blank meaning the term is just the position of the object.
It may be "H", meaning the term is the location of the house the given object is
in; it may also be "R", meaning the term is the location of the planet ruling
the house the given object is in; it may be "D", meaning the term is the
location of the planet that's the dispositor of the given object, i.e. ruler of
its position; or it may be "&", meaning the term is 10 degrees beyond the
position of the given object.
The last column is the "type" of Arabic
part. Most parts are normal psychological indicators like the Part of Fortune,
and don't have anything listed here. Seven parts reference elements and weather
and are used for charts cast at the time of equinoxes, solstices, and New and
Full moons, and are indicated by "Evnt". 21 parts reference crops and are parts
used in the commodities market for prognostication, and are indicated by "Comm".
Finally 16 parts are specially used for Horary questions and are indicated by
"Hora".
The -P switch accepts an optional parameter to indicate how many
of the Arabic parts to show. When given, only the first 'n' parts will be
displayed. As the special part types are shown after all the standard ones, this
may be used to restrict parts you don't care about. For example, "-P 161" will
leave off the horary parts, "-P 140" will leave off the horary and crop parts,
and "-P 133" will leave off the horary, crop, and event parts. Related to this,
standard -R object restrictions will affect the parts shown; if a planet is
restricted, than any parts referencing it in its formula will be left
out.
If the -P switch is invoked as -P0 (or -Pz0, etc) the output will be identical to before, except that the formula column will exchange the positions of the second and third terms, i.e. instead of showing as <term1> - <term2> + <term3>, -P0 will show <term1> + <term3> - <term2>. This isn't too useful in itself, unless combined with -Pf below, where -Pf and -Pf0 sort differently giving different terms priority. Here's how to conceptualize formulas: if the planets were rotated through the zodiac so that object2 is at the position of object1, then the new position of object3 is the part. For example, with the Part of Fortune being Asc - Sun + Moo, if you rotate your chart so that the Sun is on the Asc, then the Moon's position is the POF, Mercury's position is the Part of Commerce, its formula being Asc - Sun + Mer, and so on. The default -Pf sorting allows one to easily see, if one rotates this planet on the Asc, what parts indicate the positions of the other planets. The -Pf0 ordering allows one to easily see, where is the position of a particular planet, after all rotations where some other planet is on the Asc.
-P[z,n,f]: Order parts by position, name, or formula.As with the fixed stars, the Arabic part listing may also be sorted
in various useful orders. Invoke the -P switch as -Pz and they will be displayed
in order of position, with parts in Aries first and Pisces last. Invoke it as
-Pn and the parts will be sorted by name, with the part of Accomplishment first
and Worldliness last. Finally, invoke it as -Pf and they will be ordered by
formula, where the ordering reflects the contents of each term, with Ascendant
and early planet terms first, and cusp and other special ones
last.
Note that regardless of the ordering, passing a value to -P will
still leave off the same parts as in the standard display. Especially with -Pz
and -Pf, notice that several parts may have the same position. Some formulas
differ only in their night flip flag, meaning they will be the same for day
charts, while a few parts of different category types can even have the same
formula period.
The -I display an interpretation option is a powerful, expansive
feature to generate interpretations of many of Astrolog's charts. Simply include
the -I switch to get an interpretation of any particular type of chart that the
program would display otherwise. If Astrolog doesn't support interpretations for
it, the normal chart will be shown instead.
For example, A brief
interpretation of the meaning of the positioning of each planet in its sign and
house is supported when the -I switch is invoked with -v (or by itself since -v
is the default). If one does this, then instead of the standard -v listing of
planet positions, the positions will be listed with a brief interpretation of
what they mean. I have to say that this is a pretty limited version of
interpretation, being nothing more than a combining of phrases representing the
planet, sign, and house in question; nevertheless, people who aren't experts at
interpreting charts might find this to be of use (or at least amusing.
:)
Another common interpretation one would want is the ability to give a
brief interpretation of each aspect in the aspect grid. When the -I switch is
combined with -g, the standard -g aspect grid will be replaced with a list of
each aspect occurring and a brief listing of what it means. Again, this is
mainly just a lookup of the general meanings of each planet and the aspect in
question, but still might be found of interest by some. (Note: only the first
11 aspects, out to the Bi-Quintile, will be considered.)
Synastry
relationship charts may be interpreted too, with the -r -I combination.
Actually, they could be technically interpreted without any special code, since
the output of a synastry chart is a technical "chart" with planet and house
positions, but it would just be an interpretation of Person2's planets in
Person1's houses as if that were a natal chart. This interpretation feature
recognizes charts generated with -r as synastry charts and interprets them
appropriately. For each of Person2's planets, the interpretation of how and
where it affects Person1 is displayed.
Eight more interpretations just as
useful can be done: "-r0 person1 person2 -g -I" is a legal combination, and will
display meanings of aspects between planets in two charts in a relationship
aspect grid. "-i person -a -I" is legal, and will display the meanings of
aspects in a chart; this is like -g -I, but the aspect meanings are printed in
sorted order based on how powerful Astrolog thinks each aspect is, so this is
probably more useful. "-r0 person1 person2 -a -I" is legal, and will display the
meanings of aspects in a relationship aspect list, like -r0 -g -I, but in the
improved sorted order. "-d -I" is legal, and will display the meanings of
aspects among transiting planets occurring during a day, as well as of sign and
direction changes. "-t -I" is legal, and will display the meanings of aspects
from transiting planets to natal ones. "-T -I" is also legal, and will display
the transit interpretations in sorted order by influence. Finally, "-m -I" is a
legal combination, which will do an interpretation of a midpoint chart, printing
each midpoint in the same order as without the -I, but with each midpoint as an
interpretation sentence instead. Relationship midpoint charts may be interpreted
in the same manner using the "-r0 person1 person2 -m -I" combination.
In
displaying the interpretation text, the program will use the name or title field
of the chart (exactly as entered by the user or as passed to the -zi switch)
when referring to a person. If this field is empty, the program will use the
generic labels "this person", "person1", or "person2" as
appropriate.
This interpretation toggle switch accepts an optional
parameter to specify the number of screen columns in which to format the
interpretation paragraphs, i.e. what column to break lines at when formatting
and printing. One may change this from the default of 80 to accommodate narrower
or wider screens or printers.
Switches which affect how the chart
parameters are
obtained: |
For those with systems who can handle time calls (If your system
errors on trying to compile them, simply comment out the #define TIME line at
the beginning), the program supports displaying the chart for the time at the
current moment! In other words, invoke as astrolog -n and see where the planets
are right now. (This is fun - the house cusps change 1 minute about every 4
seconds!) You will need to change the #defines for the default longitude and
latitude in astrolog.h, or else specify where you are explicitly by using the
-zl switch to change the default location. To figure out the time zone, the
program uses the default value in the
Note that the
default time zone setting or passing values to -z, won't affect the positions of
the planets, as expected since they are where they are "now" no matter how time
is expressed. The default zone is merely used to determine what to express the
local time to when displaying the current time. It is important however to
realize that the time zone setting on your system can affect the actual raw time
the program gets internally for "now". If the -n switch seems to always generate
times an hour or more off to what you have your time zone set to, it's likely
that your time zone environment variable is uninitialized or set incorrectly.
You will need to set the "TZ" environment variable, setting it to a value such
as "xxxnyyy", where 'n' is the hours your zone is before GMT, 'xxx' is a three
character string indicating the abbreviation of the zone (required, but doesn't
need to be set to anything more than 'xxx' if you prefer) and 'yyy' is the
abbreviation for the zone when/if ever in Daylight Time. For example, if running
Astrolog on a PC in Eastern Time, put the line "set TZ=EST5EDT" in your
These switches are like the -n generate chart for current moment now feature, except that they will respectively generate charts for the midnight on the current day, midnight on the first of the current month, and midnight on the first day of the current year.
-z [<zone>]: Change the default time zone (for -d-E-t-q options).The -z <value> option can be used to change the default time
zone to the value in question. For example, you can force the -E ephemeris and
-t transit lists to be displayed at midnight GMT time instead of the local time
with "-z 0". If Daylight time is in effect, you should set the separate Daylight
time default below.
Note that one can technically get by without
changing the Daylight setting, by subtracting one from the time zone itself,
e.g. for EST where the time zone is "5", you can do "-z 4" or "-z EDT" during
Daylight time to properly display transits, aspects in day, and other lists in
the local DST zone.
Normally the -z switch takes an argument which
will then become the default time zone. If one, however, invokes it by itself,
it will subtract one hour from whatever the default time zone presently is. This
is useful since it is equivalent to adjusting any times printed to Daylight
time, i.e. it will add one hour to any times displayed. Again, this is archaic
as it's better to just use the -z0 switch below. Without the -z0 setting, when
entering the birth time for charts, one would have to subtract one hour if
Daylight time were in effect, or subtract one hour from the time zone which will
do the same thing. For example, over here on the West Coast, I have my default
time zone compiled to be "8"; when Daylight time is in effect here, I can do -z
7 or just -z to decrease the default time zone when I make say a -t transit
list, which will in effect add one hour to the local times displayed, or in
effect "Spring ahead" the clock for me. (For a better way of adjusting Astrolog
for Daylight time without having to specify -z all the time, recompile the
program, or add one hour to times in your head, use the "defaults" file
described later to edit the default time zone or the Daylight setting.) Remember
that the -z (and -zl) switches should be before any other switches they modify
(such as -n) in order for the new default to take effect.
This switch sets the contents of the default Daylight time setting, and sets the value in the current chart as well, taking one optional parameter. When present the parameter will be used for the Daylight hour offset, which will almost always be 0 or 1, but can technically be set to something else for Daylight offsets that "Spring ahead" amounts other than one hour. When omitted, the -z0 switch will toggle the Daylight setting on and off between 1 and 0.
-zl <long> <lat>: Change the default longitude & latitude.Similar to the -z switch, the -zl option can be used to change the
default compile time world coordinates used in certain options, such as the -n
cast chart for right now switch.
Note that both the -zl default
longitude and latitude, and the -z default zone switches affect the time and
location of the current chart in memory in addition to the default setting.
Confusion could result otherwise if changing a default after chart info was
already obtained, e.g. "-z -n" would be different from "-n -z", where the latter
wouldn't change the zone for the chart because it was seen after the -n was
processed and the old zone used. The correct thing will happen regardless of
ordering. This means you can easily do a relocated chart with this -zl switch,
e.g. "-i yourchart -zl 122W20 47N36" will cast your chart relocated to
Seattle.
This simple switch will set the time and only the time of the current
chart in memory to the given value. For example, to cast a chart for 3:00pm
today, do "-n -zt 3:00pm". Without this one would have to cast a whole new chart
using the -q switch and respecify the month, day, and year.
Note that
placement of this switch is important, as any other switch after it which also
sets a time will clobber the setting, e.g. "-zt 3:00pm -i chartfile" will be the
same as just "-i chartfile" because the file has its own time
value.
This is just like the -zt switch above except that it takes one parameter for and sets the day of the current chart. For example, to see the aspects taking place on the 15th of the current month, do "-n -zd 15 -d", which does the chart for the current month and year but the day scanned is the 15th instead of the current day.
-zm <month>: Set only the month of current chart.This simple switch will set the month and only the month of the current chart in memory to the given value. For example, to display an ephemeris chart for July of this year, do "-n -zm July -E".
-zy <year>: Set only the year of current chart.This is just like the -zm switch above expect it will set the year and only the year of the current chart in memory to the given value. For example, to display a chart for your birthday next year, do "-i yourchart -zy 1999".
-zi <name> <place>: Set name and place strings of current chart.This switch sets on the command line the contents of the name and
city string fields of the current chart.
Note that this switch is
actually put into present style chart info switch files generated with -o to
reload the name fields. You can convert an old style file created before version
4.20 to new style and add in the name fields for it with: -i file -zi "the name"
"the city" -o file.
(Note that you may also want to correct the time or
time zone if Daylight time was in effect though.)
The -q <month> <date> <year> <time> option
takes the four parameters and casts a chart for the time in question. The time
zone and location are taken from the default compiled values. This is just yet
another useful shorthand way to quickly make a chart.
Note that the
-qa option which takes all seven chart parameters can be duplicated with -q
along with the -z <zone> and -l <long> <lat>
options.
The -q <month> <day> <year> option can be used to
cast a quick chart for 12 noon on a particular date, using the default longitude
and latitude, and time zone. One example where this is useful is with the -d
option, e.g. to see the times of exact aspects on a particular date, like your
next birthday, your finals, etc, without having to specify unnecessary
data.
Note that this is just like the -q switch except that -q
requires a specific time on the day in question as well.
A quick chart cast for midnight on the first of a month can be generated with the two parameter -qm <month> <year> switch. A chart cast for midnight on the first of January of a year can be generated with the one parameter -qy <year> switch. Both of these use the default time zone and location. These switches are most useful for charts that don't require all the standard information. For example, to get an ephemeris for December, 2000, do "astrolog -qm 12 2000" and avoid having to enter in a day, hour, or location that wouldn't have any effect. These options are in similar to the -qd <month> <day> <year> switch above that will do a chart for noon on the given date, and the -q <month> <day> <year> <time> switch that takes a time as well.
-qa <month> <date> <year> <time> <zone> <long> <lat>: Compute chart automatically given specified data.Normally one generates a new chart by entering the data coordinates interactively. A fast typist familiar with the program might prefer to give all the info at once, which can be done with this option. Simply list the seven parameters above, in the exact format as they would be given to the program were the user being prompted for them. (Note that it's probably better to use the -qb switch below because of its extra parameter; the -qa switch will automatically assume Daylight time is off.)
-qb <month> <date> <year> <time> <daylight> <zone> <long> <lat>: Like -qa but takes additional parameter for daylight offset.This switch is just like the -qa switch above except that it takes one extra parameter for the Daylight Saving time flag. In order, the eight parameters for -qb are Month, Day, Year, Time, Daylight offset, Time Zone, Longitude, and Latitude. (Like -zi this switch is also put into chart info files by -o.)
-qj <day>: Compute chart for time of specified Julian day.This switch will automatically cast a chart for the given Julian Day.
Unlike the other -q switches which take standard months, days, and years, this
switch takes one parameter for the Julian Day (which may be fractional to
specify a time within the day in question). For example, another way to cast a
chart for Midnight, GMT, on New Year's Day of 1994 is with "-qj 2449353.5".
(Julian Day 0 refers to Noon GMT, January 1, 4712 BC.)
Known bug: If
the extended Placalc formulas aren't compiled into the program it will have to
use an older version of the Julian day conversion routines which will result in
these -qj charts giving incorrect results for dates in the Julian Calendar, i.e.
before October 1582, which can be seen by casting a chart with -qj specifying a
day less than 2299161.5, in which case the Julian Day displayed for the date of
the chart cast will be ten days greater than what was passed to it.
$$ Note that there is a "virtual file" named "
This is best used within a -Q loop. For example, you first
manually enter the time for a chart and it is displayed. Now, this time in the
loop, you want the same chart in an aspect grid, and don't want to have to enter
the data again or create a file to read from. Entering "-i set" will use this
chart info no matter how it was entered. For graphics charts this "last" chart
will be set to the initial chart or whatever animation situation was saved via
the 'o' key. Perhaps the most useful ability of the "set" chart however is that
it will set itself to times that appear in -t and -d transit and aspect in day
searches. For example, if you want to cast a chart for the New Moon the other
January, first do a combination like "-qd 1 11 1994 -d -R0 1 2 -A 1", which will
scan the 11th for Conjunctions involving the Sun and Moon, and display the time.
Before, to get a New Moon chart one would then have to manually specify the time
displayed. Now, just "-i set" will bring it up!
The initial contents of
the "previous" chart, i.e. what you get by directly doing something like
"astrolog -i set" are initialized to the astrological "chart" for the release of
this version 5.40 of the program itself, which is the time of the Winter
Solstice, specifically for 5:57pm PST (8 hours before GMT) on Monday, December
21, 1998 for here in Seattle, WA (122W20, 47N36).
This is one more
"virtual file" that's obscure and only useful in certain circumstances, named
"nul" which may be passed to the -i file input or -r switches which take chart
info files for parameters. The file "nul" means to not change the chart info
parameters any, but rather leave them with whatever current settings they may
have or were set to before. This is mainly useful with the -r switches if you
don't want to have to create two actual files to pass in, or use the virtual
file "tty" and have to enter in data interactively. For example, to see what
your biorhythm is like for the beginning of December, do "astrolog -qm 12 1998
-rb nul yourchart" on the command line and no further input is needed.
If the -i chart file load switch is invoked as -i2, it will do the same thing as -i except put the chart info into the "second" chart slot, for use with relationship charts. This does not enter or leave any relationship chart mode. One can set what chart info each wheel ring in the tri-wheel and quad-wheel charts will contain by putting a number after the -i switch to load the chart info from a file into that slot, where -i3 will load into the third slot, and -i4 into the fourth (where -i2 will again load into the second, and -i1 or just -i into the first).
-o <file> [..]: Write parameters of current chart to file.The program supports directing chart information to, and reading
output from, data files. The '-o' option will dump all the birth data (the date
and location, not the planet positions) to the specified file. The '-i' option
will cast the chart based on the info in the file. (This allows you to put your
birth data into a specific file, and cast your chart whenever you want to after
that without having to reenter your birth data all the time.)
Another
file output feature, the ability to concatenate "comment lines" at the end of a
data file, is included with both the -o and -o0 options, as you may wish to say
keep track of info other than the program supported name and city. After
scanning the filename, the -o[0] option will then write any parameter that
follows it at the end of the file, until a parameter beginning with a '-' or '/'
(the next obvious command switch) is reached. For example: -o <file>
"Birth certificate" Family, will add extra info indicating the source of my
birth data, and a general category for the chart, in two separate lines at the
end of the file. (On most systems, quotes can be used to allow spaces within one
parameter.)
Ability to write the actual sign and house positions of a chart to a
file (instead of just the time and place) has been implemented via the -o0
<file> option. This option can be used interchangeably with the -o output
to file switch. The information written includes the zodiac position of all
unrestricted objects, their retrograde velocity, latitude, and distance, as well
as the positions of the house cusps. (The chart name strings as set with the -zi
switch are written out too of course.) This file information can easily be
passed into another program, and can be read back into Astrolog with the -i
option. The -i option will automatically determine which type the file is, and
will either use the given positions, or else calculate them as
needed.
(Note that some switches, such as the -c house system
selection, will have no effect for this file type.) Check an example of one of
these files to see the precise format (a zodiac position is recorded as three
numbers: degree in sign, sign as number 1 through 12 or three letter
abbreviation, and floating point minute within the degree.) When the files are
read back in, they will be flagged as "having no space or time" like the
composite charts in the chart header displays.
This file format can
allow one to do things such as transits to composite charts (send the composite
chart to file with -o0 option and then read in the file with -i when using the
-t switch) composites between two composite charts (use -rc between two
composite charts sent to a file) and even, if one is willing to do a small
amount of editing, to do transits to midpoints or the 0 degrees Aries point.
Note that one can easily edit the positions in the -o0 position file to be
whatever they like, so one could replace some unimportant object (e.g. the
vertex) with 0 degrees Aries or an important midpoint value. Note that trying to
still use the -o time and space output with a chart in memory that doesn't have
space/time will confuse the program; it will either say it can't make the file
or else will output the time/space of the most recent parameter file it read
in.
Note for old style -o0 position files created before version
4.20 that aren't based on command lines (see -Yo switch later): the positions of
the eight uranians may be output to those planet position files in addition to
the 20 main objects, but only if the uranians are actually calculated with -u in
effect. Hence those position files can be of two different lengths, but the
program will be able to read in both formats, leaving the uranians uninitialized
at zero Aries if they aren't also in the file.
This switch, given a file, will output the contents of a text chart
to that file. This is just like output redirection (i.e. "> textfile" at the
end of a command line) except that it's implemented within the program. Hence
unlike output redirection it will work from within a -Q loop, from the File Run
menu in Microsoft Windows, and on systems whose shells don't allow redirection
at all. This also has the advantage in that prompts and user messages won't be
sent to the file, hence things can be done such as "astrolog -os textfile",
where the program will still prompt you on the screen for the chart info, but
the chart itself will still go to the file.
The -os switch may also be
expressed as ->, which is included as a convenience with its similarity to
the ">" output redirection featured in many shells. As with all switches, one
may leave off the dash and invoke it as just ">". When just ">" is
included on the command line, the system's own output redirection will tend to
be used. This switch allows one to also include ">" when prompted for command
lines within the program, or when running from MS Windows, where the shell plays
no part.
Switches which affect what
information is used in a
chart: |
The ability to restrict the transit (-t) and daily aspect (-d) scans
to just certain bodies has been implemented with the -R switch. Using -R by
itself will prevent the asteroids, Chiron, Lilith, the Part of Fortune, East
Point, and the Vertex from being in any of the charts. One may also give a list
of one or more numbers representing planets to be ignored (e.g. 1 = Sun, 2 =
Moon, 3 = Mercury, etc) or specify planet abbreviations directly, so that a
complete custom setup can be obtained (e.g. "-R 1 2 3 4 5" or "-R sun moo mer
ven mar" will cause all of the inner planets to be ignored). More than one -R
switch can be combined (e.g. -R -R 16 will cause the asteroids, etc, and the
North Node to be ignored; the first -R gets rid of the asteroids, etc, and the
second one deletes the North Node.) Also, specifying the same particular body
more than once will cause it to be included again, or in other words, -R
<objectnum> complements the status of whether it is to be ignored or not
(e.g. -R -R 15 will cause all of the asteroids, etc, excluding Vesta, to be
ignored; the first -R makes causes the asteroids to be ignored, and specifying
Vesta in the second -R makes it reappear.)
Note that Astrolog will
compute charts faster when objects are restricted, since it doesn't bother to
compute locations that aren't needed or used. For example, the search of a year
for a Solar Return (-i chart -ty year -R0 sun -RT0 sun) is about twice as fast
than when the restrictions are omitted, since we're only looking at Sun
locations.
The -R0 option will cause ALL of the bodies to be ignored, which is useful if you are looking for just the transits/aspects of a few planets (e.g. -R0 6 7 will cause everything but Jupiter and Saturn to be ignored.) Combining all these methods can cause whatever you are looking for in transits and aspects to be quickly found without having to wade through lots of stuff you aren't interested in.
-R1 [<obj1> ..]: Like -R0 but unrestrict and show all objects.This will unconditionally UN-restrict all planets and other objects
used by the program, a compliment to the -R0 switch above which restricts
everything.
Note that this will also set modes, in that it does
automatically activate the -C, -u, and -U sets of objects.
These three switches are similar to the -R0 option in that they initially restrict objects, i.e. all the minor cusps, Uranians, and stars, (described below) respectively from appearing. For example, if you want to include only the star Sirius in an X window chart without having to also include all the other stars (or having to enter a very long restriction list), do: "astrolog -U -RU 48 -X", which will include the stars, and then restrict them all except Sirius, before making the chart.
-RT[0,1,C,u,U] [..]: Restrict transiting planets in -t lists.Transiting planets may be restricted from charts independently of
those planets being transited to. In -T charts, the -R option only affects the
natal planets. To restrict transiting planets, one must use the -RT option. The
-RT option is exactly like -R, and any subswitches of -R can be used with -RT as
long as the 'T' immediately follows the 'R'. For example, -RT by itself
restricts transiting asteroids from appearing in -T charts, -RT0 restricts all
transiting bodies, -RTu restricts the Uranians, and so on. This is a really
useful feature, and allows one to pretty much be able to generate exactly and
only those transits one is interested in. For example, if you want to see if
anything is transiting your natal Jupiter or natal Saturn this month, do:
"astrolog -i yourchart -T 3 1993 -R0 6 7". If you want to see if Chiron is
transiting anything this year (excluding asteroids), do: "astrolog -i yourchart
-Ty 1993 -RT0 11 -R". If you are only interested in transits of outer planets to
your Sun or Moon, do: "astrolog -i yourchart -T 3 1993 -RT0 6 7 8 9 10 -R0 1 2",
and so on. By default, only the transiting Moon is restricted. To get it back,
merely unrestrict it with "-RT 2". These default transit restrictions are in the
The -RA switch will restrict the given aspect or list of aspects from appearing in charts, like how the -R switch does for objects. Technically, an aspect will be restricted if it's given a negative orb. The -RA switch just gives the specified aspects negative orbs, and is a shorthand for having to explicitly use the -Ao orb setting switch. (This means that -RA won't toggle an already restricted aspect back on however.)
-C: Include angular and non-angular house cusps in charts.This option must be indicated to include the 12 actual house cusps (i.e. Ascendant, et al) in the various chart options, such as the -g aspect grids, -t transit searches, the graphics wheel chart, etc. This option of course won't have any effect on certain charts where only physical bodies are shown (e.g. -Z, -S, -L) or where all house cusps are already indicated in the chart (e.g. -v, -w). The house cusps technically have actual object indexes like the planets, and are objects 21 through 32 in order (add 20 to a house to get its index). You can deal with and restrict these individually for transit and other charts, e.g. to turn on just the Ascendant and MC, do "-C -RC 21 30" Concerning rulerships, each cusp object is set to "rule" the sign corresponding to it (e.g. Ascendant "rules" Aries) while each cusp "exalts in" the next sign after it of the same element (e.g. Ascendant "exalts in" Leo).
-u: Include transneptunian/uranian bodies in charts.Display the locations of the "Uranian" planets with the -u switch. Transneptunian or Uranian planets are an interesting subset of astrology which includes various objects alleged to be beyond Pluto. (Do: astrolog -u -O to list the eight Uranian bodies.) Anyway, Astrolog will display the zodiac positions of these planets as well if one includes this option, and will print their positions after the main planets, or include them in the other chart types.
-U: Include locations of fixed background stars in charts.Astrolog has the ability to display the positions of 47 of the brightest and most important stars in the sky. To include these stars in a chart, use the -U "universe" option. The 43 brightest stars, i.e. all those with apparent magnitude values < 2.0 are included, in addition to four dimmer "stars" which are considered significant, i.e.: Polaris the North star, the Pleiades (specifically the star Pleione within it) star cluster (home of our extraterrestrial cousins), Zeta Reticuli (home of the Grey aliens), and the Andromeda (M31) Galaxy (closest galaxy to our own Milky Way, and home to various extraterrestrial hierarchies.) One bright star is called "Orion", which is formally Alnilam, the middle star of Orion's belt. Since stars are fixed in the sky, they will never change position in the -s sidereal zodiac, although they will slowly precess forward in the normal tropical zodiac. The -R restriction option can be used to determine which stars are actually included, although the -U option still needs to be included to get any stars at all. (With on screen graphics, the stars are labeled by three letter abbreviations, and are colored according to their brightness: orange for stars brighter than (less than) magnitude 1.0, and dark red for the dimmer remaining stars with magnitudes greater than this value.)
-U[z,l,n,b]: Order by azimuth, altitude, name, or brightness.In the -v standard chart, -Z horizon chart, and in the -O object
list, where all the stars are printed sequentially, it can sometimes be
confusing to locate the star you want among 42 others. The -U option can be
modified to sort the stars in various ways. If one uses -Ub instead of just -U,
the stars will be listed in order from brightest to dimmest. Doing -Un instead
of -U will alphabetize the stars by name. -Ul will sort them by their altitude
from highest in the sky to lowest, while -Uz will sort them by their zodiac
position.
Note that any star ordering will have no visible effect in X
windows, and on must still use the default ordering when passing numbers to the
-R option to restrict various stars.
If you like many aspects, or only desire the major ones, to be included in the aspect grids, specifying -A <number> will limit or extend the number of aspects (e.g. -A 2 will make charts with only conjunctions and oppositions listed in them, while -A 18 will include all 18 aspects that Astrolog supports.)
-Ao <aspect> <orb>: Specify maximum orb for an aspect.Change the default orbs of the various aspects with the -Ao
<aspect> <orb> switch. Do you not like the 7 degree
orbs for conjunctions that are in there by default? Given an aspect number and
an orb value, the orb used for that particular aspect is updated accordingly.
Non-integer orb values are allowed of course. Use negative orb values to
completely eliminate an aspect from ever appearing. For example: astrolog -Ao 2
4 -Ao 4 -1 narrows the orb for Oppositions, and completely eliminates Trines,
leaving all the other aspects at the default values.
Note that for
very wide orbs more than one aspect may apply for a particular angle, in which
case the more fundamental aspect is chosen. Also for wide aspects the fractional
value of the orb may be lost in the -g text grid (due to too many characters)
and their might be some slight overlap in the X window -g cells.
Ability to explicitly specify maximum orbs that any aspect can make
to a particular planet is supported with the -Am switch. This is used for
objects like the North Node which require narrower orbs than what the aspects
themselves normally allow. The -Am switch takes two parameters: the first to
indicate the index of the object, and the second to indicate what the maximum
orb allowed to it will be. By default, the only objects with restriction are the
Node, Part of Fortune, Vertex, and stars, which allow a 2 degree max orb to
them. With this option, one can change these limits or impose restrictions for
other planets too. The
Ability to widen an aspect orb for any planet is supported with the
-Ad switch. This is used for objects like the Sun and Moon for which one might
want wider orbs to them than what the aspects themselves allow. Like the -Am
switch, this -Ad switch takes two parameters: the first to indicate the object,
and the second to indicate how much wider orbs allowed to it will be. By
default, the only objects which have orbs widened for them are the Sun and Moon,
each of which adds one degree to the orb of any aspect to it. With this option,
one can change these additions or allow other objects to have them, too. The
(Note that these object orb additions can be
added to a negative orb for an aspect making it valid, so if you really want to
restrict an aspect with -Ao, it should be a large enough negative value so that
the sum of any additions between two objects won't make it go
positive.)
This option is used to change the actual angle of a particular aspect. This is useful if one wants to search for some unusual angle not already available in Astrolog's aspects or accessible through the -x harmonic charts. For example, if I want to know when any planet enters a 2.5 degree orb of any planet in my natal chart, I would do a transit search along with "-Aa 1 2.5", where "1" is the index of the conjunction aspect, and "2.5" means the "conjunction" is now exact when any two objects are 2 degrees and 30 minutes apart.
Switches which affect how a chart is
computed: |
Astrolog has a set of calculation routines which are much more
accurate than the standard Matrix software routines that are usually used by
default. One may choose between these calculation methods with the -b switch.
With -b, Sun through Pluto, the North Node, Chiron, and the four asteroids will
be computed more accurately (although it will take slightly longer). The other
uranians, stars, and house cusps are always generated with the Matrix routines.
This advanced calculation uses ephemeris files for some planets which
must be in a directory specified at compile time or covered by one of the
environment variables in order to be found. The advanced routines are valid
based on how many of the ephemeris files one has. With all of them, the formulas
will cover and deliver accurate positions for nearly 8500 years from -5260 BC
through 3237 AD! There are 95 ephemeris files total. Each file covers a range of
100,000 days, or about 273 years. Altogether they take up 4.8 megabytes of disk
space, but each segment of 273 years only takes up 150K. For each time segment,
there is an ephemeris file named "
Astrolog uses the formulas from the "Placalc" program package to
generate its precise positions. Placalc's accuracy is about the same as Mark
Pottenger's "CCRS" routines, and those used in Nova (it even fixes some accuracy
problems Nova has, in some of its earlier versions at least). Placalc's
integrated outer planet positions represent the standard of the Nautical
Almanac, the international astronomical standard, as published in the
Astronomical Almanac, for its computations as computed before 1984. (Since 1984
the standard has been the DE200 integrations by JPL.) The Sun's position
implements the Newcomb theory for all terms > 0.01", the positions of Mercury
through Mars are done to all terms > 0.05", while "Brown's improved lunar
ephemeris" is used such that the Moon is within 3" of DE200. For the asteroids,
at the conclusion of the integration process computing their files, the
uncertainty error had reached 8.0E-11 AU after CPJV_29, and 4.9E-10 AU after
CPJV_m2. Placalc's fraction of second precision, is of course much more accurate
when compared to the Matrix positions, which are only accurate to about one
minute (and several degrees for Chiron, as well as the four asteroids) for this
century only. For example, at 1800 AD, the Matrix positions for the outer
planets are off by 2 degrees, and about 1 degree for 2100; by 1500 AD, Matrix is
off by 14 degrees for Pluto while Chiron is barely in the right hemisphere any
more.
There is a flag to "Use ephemeris files" in the
Note that because the asteroid ephemeris files were first
introduced in a version after those for the other planets, meaning one may not
yet have
Note that this calculation method is
not compatible with allowing the -v0 switch to express planetary velocities
relative to average speed work with it, and nor will central planetary bodies
other than the Sun or Earth (standard Geo and Helio centric charts) via -h work.
It will however display velocities for the Moon and the Node, which aren't
available with the Matrix routines.
Note that the requirements for use of these asteroid files are similar to that of the rest of Astrolog, in that they are freely available for non-commercial use but unavailable for commercial use.
The ability to display zodiac positions to the nearest degree second
is supported with the -b0 switch. Normally all positions are displayed just to
the minute (which was all that is useful due to the accuracy available in the
Matrix formulas). With the Placalc routines accurate to within seconds, this
switch, in addition to turning on the more accurate formulas like just -b above
does, will also turn on the more accurate display.
When this setting is
on, the planet and house positions in the -w text wheel chart, and the sidebar
positions in graphic wheel charts, will be to the nearest second. The -Z local
space chart will display the altitude and azimuth to the nearest second, while
the other three vector columns will be displayed with an extra digit of
precision. The -S orbital position chart will have all five of its columns
displayed to an extra four digits of precision. The -L0 astro-graph chart with
latitude crossings will display the latitude crossing intersections to the
nearest second.
Finally the standard -v listing will display the zodiac
positions and latitudes to the nearest second, and the velocity values will have
an extra four digits of precision.
Note however this doesn't leave
room to the right anymore for the house cusp positions and element table
normally shown. They will be left out for -b0, however when the -C switch is in
effect, the house cusp positions will be displayed in their own separate rows,
which normally isn't ever done since there's always the list to the side. (One
more thing is that -b0 combined with -v will display an extra column at the end
showing the decan positions of each object, allowing viewing of each planet
alongside its decan without having to actually change positions with the -3
switch.)
Fifteen different house systems are supported in the program:
Invoke as astrolog -c <number> to change the system from the default of
Placidus. Note that certain house systems (i.e. Placidus and Koch) aren't
defined for locations inside the Ant/arctic circle. If the user attempts to cast
a chart using them with a latitude beyond about 66 degrees N or S, the program
will display a warning, and then change the latitude of the chart being computed
to the closest legal latitude allowed (i.e. move it from the pole to the edge of
the Arctic or Antarctic circle) during the computation of the chart. Certain
house systems are still defined at extreme latitudes (inside the Arctic or
Antarctic circles) but have the condition where the natural formulas for the MC
and Asc at those locations would put the Asc in the 180 degrees before instead
of after the MC. In such a case Astrolog preserves the Midheaven, and flips the
Ascendant if need be to ensure the other house cusps will remain
sane.
House system number 10 is the Midheaven based Equal house
system. This is just like the more common standard Equal house system (-c 2)
except that we start with the 10th cusp being the same as the MC and
disassociate the 1st cusp from the Ascendant, instead of starting with the 1st
cusp being the same as the Ascendant and disassociating the 10th cusp from the
MC.
House index 11 is the Neo-Porphyry system of house division. This is
a new system similar to Porphyry houses except that it's "smooth" around the
zodiac with the MC/Asc difference being spread in a continuous sinusoidal manner
from expanded to compressed quadrants.
House index 12 is the Whole
system of houses, where the first cusp is at zero degrees of the sign of the
Ascendant, and the others are all at the beginning of the succeeding signs. This
is basically the same as the Equal system with all positions shifted back to the
start of their sign. Thanks to Andy Gray for telling me about this system and
how it's computed.
House index 13 is the Vedic system of houses, or more
specifically the modern India style of Equal houses. In this system, each house
covers 30 degrees, and the Ascendant is always in the middle of the first house,
i.e. the 1st cusp is always 15 degrees before the Ascendant. (For contrast, the
ancient or traditional India style of equal houses are already supported in
Astrolog by the Whole house system above, where the first house cusp is always
the start of the sign the Ascendant is in.)
House system 14 refers to no
houses at all, or in other words where the Ascendant will always be 0 degrees
Aries, the Nadir 0 degrees Cancer, etc, which is useful for the extended chart
animations as described later, where having houses at all can tend to get in the
way; one can even observe the precession of the equinoxes with this system if
used in conjunction with the -s sidereal chart option.
With this option, the chart will be just like the normal charts as
most commonly used in Western astrology, except that all the zodiac positions
will be shifted (to be about 24 degrees earlier). This is because the option
casts sidereal charts which are based on the positions of the fixed stars (i.e.
Aries starts at the constellation Aries) rather than the seasons (i.e. Aries
starts at the Spring or Vernal Equinox.) Due to the "precession of the
equinoxes" the position of the Sun at the Equinoxes has been gradually happening
at an earlier point in the sidereal zodiac each year (taking about 2100 years
change signs.)
This switch accepts an optional parameter of an offset for
the start of the zodiac. This value, when non-zero, will be added to all zodiac
positions, and effectively allows one to choose any starting point for the
sidereal (or tropical) zodiac, which is useful for Hindu or other systems whose
sidereal zodiacs have zero Aries at a different location than the standard
Fagan-Bradley sidereal zodiac the program uses by default. For example, "-s
10.5" will add 10 degrees and 30 minutes to all zodiac positions. This value is
initialized to a zodiac offset value setting in the
This will display planetary positions relative to the Earth's equator instead of the ecliptic i.e. Earth's orbit. This is the way more commonly used in astronomy, and results in real right ascension notation, especially when combined with the -s sidereal zodiac and -sh hours and minutes display format. This switch makes the declination values in the standard -v listing also relative to the equator, instead of the ecliptic latitude displayed by default, where "Declination" will be printed at the head of the column instead of "Latitude". (Without this the only way to get such information is from the zenith latitudes in the -L astro-graph chart which show the same thing.) Note that this setting isn't fully integrated with all of Astrolog's charts; specifically it will distort the values in the -Z local horizon, -S orbit, and -L astro-graph charts which assume ecliptic positions, and hence -sr shouldn't be combined with these options.
-s[z,h,d]: Display locations as in zodiac, hours/minutes, or degrees.For astronomers out there, the -sh switch will express all planetary positions in the right ascension hours/minutes format instead of the sign/degrees/minutes astrologers are accustomed to. This will affect how the objects are listed in the -v display, and how star azimuths are displayed in the -HO list. For example, 0 degrees Aries is represented as 0 hr, 0 min; 0 Cancer goes to 6 hr, 0 min, and so on through the 24 hour clock. The -sd switch will cause zodiac positions to be displayed as a simple degree value in the 360 degree circle. To return to the default of displaying as a degree within a zodiac sign, use the -sz switch.
-h [<objnum>]: Compute positions centered on specified object.Normal astrology charts are based on the positions of the planets relative to the Earth. However, this option allows seeing of the zodiac positions with respect to the Sun's (or any other planet's) point of view. The -h option when invoked by itself will display a heliocentric chart: the Sun in the original listing will be replaced with the Earth's position as seen from the Sun in the heliocentric chart, with the other planets' positions modified accordingly. For bodies other than the Sun, the option takes a parameter to indicate which planet to center the chart on, e.g. do -h 5 to cast a Mars centered chart. (Moon centered charts aren't allowed; in fact, note that when the -b ephemeris setting is off, the -h option won't ever affect the Moon, which will always be displayed as seen from the Earth, no matter what the center body is set to, since it's not a formal planet.) Note also that the Earth has its own object index, which is position number zero, meaning 0 is a valid value to pass to switches that take an object like -R. Charts such as the local horizon chart which don't include the central planet, will automatically leave it out even if that planet is unrestricted.
-p <month> <day> <year>: Cast 2ndary progressed chart for date.A secondary progression chart for a particular date can be cast using
the '-p <month> <date> <year>' command switch. (Note: I'm not
sure if the house cusps are progressed correctly for all methods of computation,
but they are reasonably close to what is expected using most of them.) The
precise time within the given day progressed to is midnight in the default time
zone.
Hackers note: this setting to progress charts to the specified
time, may be turned off by invoking the -p switch as "_p" with the underscore
reset prefix. Unlike the standard -p switch, _p take no parameters. This is a
command switch trick only useful when doing multiple charts in a -Q loop, or
when passing extra command lines to a graphics screen with the return key or
through macros.
Solar arc progressions are supported in addition to secondaries. Invoke the -p <month> <day> <year> switch as -p0 instead, and a chart will be generated with all planets and house cusps progressed forward an amount equal in degrees to the number of years that have passed between the specified date and the chart in question. The -pd option here (see below) specifies the number of days that have to pass per zodiac degree to progress forward; by default this is 365.25. To generate a solar arc chart for the current moment now, invoke the -pn switch as -p0n.
-p[0]n: Cast progressed chart based on current date now.The -pn switch is like the -p <month> <date> <year> switch except that (like the -n switch) it assumes the current moment now to cast the progressed chart to. This is just another shorthand convenience to see what ones progressed chart is like presently; just do: astrolog -i file -pn.
-pd <days>: Set no. of days to progress / day (default 365.25).User definable progression rates can be specified with this option. When using the -p progression option, Astrolog assumes you want the standard "year for a day" rate of progressions. By passing different values to the -pd switch, one can change the default "365.25 days for a day" to any value they want for some less often used method of progression. For example, one can do "-pd 7 -pn" to do a week for a day, "-pd -365.25 -pn" to get negative year for day progressions, and so on. For tertiary progressions, do "-pd 29.530588". (Note that "-pd 1 -p..." would be the same as if no progression were done at all.)
-x <value>: Cast harmonic chart based on specified factor.Harmonic charts (i.e. where all the planet positions are multiplied by a factor and the chart recast) are supported via the "-x" option (e.g. "-x 3" will make all trines conjunct in the chart displayed.) The parameter passed in may range anywhere from 1 (i.e. no harmonic factor) to 30000 for those who want to explore extreme harmonics.
-1 [<objnum>]: Cast chart with specified object on Ascendant.The -1 <obj> option can be used to change the houses to force a particular object to be on the ascendant. This is useful in casting Solar charts or for when the time of birth is not exactly known. For example -1 2 will case a normal chart, but the house cusps will be rotated so that the moon is on the ascendant.
-2 [<objnum>]: Cast chart with specified object on Midheaven.Just as the -1 option is used to cast a chart with an object on the Ascendant, the -2 <object> switch will cast a chart with the specified object on the Midheaven. The house cusps will be rotated so that the object in question is conjunct the 10th house cusp. As with the -1 option, if <object> is not specified, the Sun will be assumed by default.
-3: Display objects in their zodiac decan positions.Decan displays are supported in Astrolog, and one can display a decan influenced chart with the -3 switch. The decan theory is that each sign in the zodiac can be divided into three parts: The first 10 degrees (i.e. the first decan) is mainly influenced by the sign in question, the second 10 degrees (second decan) although still influenced by the sign in question is also somewhat influenced by the next sign of the same element, while the last decan is influenced by the third sign of the same element. The -3 switch applied to a chart will move each object into the sign of its decan. For example, if the Sun is at 29 degrees Aquarius and the Moon at 5 degrees Virgo, in the resulting chart, the Sun will go to Libra (26 degrees) and the Moon will remain in Virgo (although be at 15 degrees now since it was previously in the middle of the first decan of Virgo.)
-f: Display houses as sign positions (flip them).The -f option can be used to "flip" the signs and houses, i.e. display the house as a sign position and vice versa. For example having the Sun at 26 degrees Scorpio, 2/3 way though the 10th house, will cause the resulting Sun under the -f option to be at 20 degrees Capricorn, 26/30th the way through the 8th house. This can be used to determine how far a planet is through a particular house, as well as for domal chart analysis that Mark Kenski has informed me about. Domal analysis is based on the fact that for synastry comparisons, for example, a planet in Gemini and one in the 3rd house can be considered related in a way similar to a conjunction.
-G: Display houses based on geographic location only.This switch generates a special type of locational analysis chart, called a geodetic chart, in which the house cusps are computed from a different source, i.e. as a function of only the longitude and latitude. This basically gives every spot on the planet a different unique set of house cusps, and can be used to analyze the characteristics of different areas, and their influence on you if you insert your own planets in the houses. This type of chart was described in the January 1992 issue of Dell Horoscope magazine, from which I learned how to generate these charts. Basically, the Midheaven is approximately the longitude value converted from degrees into the appropriate zodiac sign; for example 0 degrees E goes to 0 degrees Aries, 30 degrees E goes to 0 degrees Taurus, etc.
-J: Display wheel charts in Vedic format.Astrolog can display wheel charts in Hindu or Vedic format. This will affect both the text -w wheels and the graphic wheels. A Vedic format wheel is identical to a standard Western wheel except: (1) The signs and houses increase as you go clockwise instead of counterclockwise, so the entire wheel is flipped over. (2) The chart is rotated so the left edge is always the start of Aquarius instead of the Ascendant, putting Pisces in the upper left corner, meaning the Ascendant is placed wherever in the wheel is appropriate. For Vedic astrology one will probably prefer to combine this with the -w house focused wheel chart switch so all the houses are the same size, or even display that chart in text mode so the wheel will be a square.
-9: Display objects in their zodiac navamsa positions.This command switch will display the chart in the navamsa format used in Vedic astrology. The navamsa or marriage chart is formed by applying a formula to each planet position to get a resulting new location. This is similar in operation to the -3 decan feature, however this divides each sign into ninths. Specifically, to convert a position, see which ninth of a sign a planet falls in, e.g. a planet from 0 degrees 0' to 3 degrees 20' of a sign is in the first ninth, a planet from 3 degrees 20' to 6 degrees 40' is in the second ninth, and so on. Take that number, and count one less than that many signs ahead in the zodiac to get the resulting sign. The starting sign should be Aries if the original sign was Fire, Capricorn if the original sign was Earth, Libra if the original sign was Air, and Cancer if the original sign was Water. A formal navamsa chart only considers signs, hence only the sign of each planet will be changed; the degree within each sign will be
-F <objnum> <sign> <deg>: Force object's position to be value.The -F option is used to force a particular object's position to always be a particular location in the zodiac. This feature can be used as an easy way to manually include things Astrolog normally doesn't in various charts. For example, this can be used to force the position of some minor thing, like the Vertex, to always be the location of whatever you prefer, like the 0 degrees Aries point, or an important midpoint. Then you can do an aspect grid, transit search, or whatever, and calculate aspects to midpoints or transits over midpoints. The -F switch takes three arguments: first is the index of the object to replace, next is the sign from 1..12 to force it to be, and third is the degree within the sign. For example, if I want to see if anything is making an exact aspect today with my Sun Moon midpoint at 6Sag28, I could do "astrolog -n -d -F 16 9 6.28", which would replace the North Node with my Sun Moon midpoint in the aspect search.
-+ [<days>]: Cast chart for specified no. of days in the future.The -+ <#ofdays> option will cast a normal chart, but one for
#ofdays in the future (or past if a negative value is given). One use for this
is in combination with the -n and -d options. For instance, I often invoke the
program as "astrolog -n -d" to see the exact times of today's aspects. However,
just before midnight I might want to see what's going to happen in the following
day, so I would do "astrolog -n -d -+ 1" to see the exact times for tomorrow's
aspects. The #ofdays parameter is optional, and will default to one if left off,
so the above command can be done as just "astrolog -n -d -+".
Note that
for such a chart, the chart header will show the correct date of the actual new
chart, instead of the original one. For example, today (9-11), if I do "astrolog
-n -+ 2" I will get the chart for two days from now, and the chart header will
display 9-13. This has some special uses. For example, if you want to know what
the date was/will be when you are 10000 days old, do "astrolog -i yourchart -+
10000" and see what the date in the resulting chart header is.
This "dash minus" option is just like the "dash plus" (-+) option described above, except it subtracts instead of adds the specified number of days from any chart cast. This is only for convenience, in that "-- 1" is the same as "-+ -1".
-+[m,y] [<value>]: Cast chart for no. of months/years in future.The -+m switch is just like the -+ switch above except that it will add one month (30 days) to whatever chart instead of one day. The -+y switch will add one year (365 days) to whatever chart. The -- "dash minus" switch is extended in a similar manner, in that --m and --y will do as expected. These switches also have the optional parameter to specify how many months or years to move forward or back.
Switches for relationship and comparison
charts: . |
Computing the relationship between two charts is supported. Invoke
the program as 'astrolog -r <file_of_person1> <file_of_person2>' and
the program will give you the relationship between the two charts. In other
words, the program will use the positions of person2's planets and person1's
houses. Use this with the -w option to get a wheel chart and you can do
synastry. Note that transits can be computed with this by comparing your chart
with the positions of the planets at the current moment (as in -n switch). To
make this easier, you may specify the filename "now" for any file and the
computer will use the current planet positions instead of looking for a like
named file. (e.g. 'astrolog -r me now' will compute transits for file 'me'.)
Hackers note: if the -r switch is invoked as "_r" with the underscore
reset prefix, whatever relationship mode will be canceled. Unlike the standard
-r switches, _r takes no file parameters. This is a command switch trick only
useful when doing multiple charts in a -Q loop, or when passing extra command
lines to a graphics screen with the return key or through macros. Astrolog's -r
relationship chart switches set relationship chart mode, and without this
there's no easy way to return to single chart mode. Yes when a graphics screen
is up, the 'c' key will toggle relationship comparison mode, but that's not
available from the command line.
The '-r' option can be used to generate composite relationship charts. Simply invoke it as '-rc <person1> <person2>' instead of just -r and a composite chart (i.e. composed of the midpoints of the planets, etc. of the two charts in question) will be generated. (Note: when the house cusps in the two charts are nearly 180 degrees apart, simply taking the midpoints of all the cusps may result in them being out of order in the resulting composite. In such a case we give priority to the composite midheaven, and invert the midpoints of any of the other cusps or the Ascendant by 180 degrees if leaving them that way would have things out of order.)
-rm <file1> <file2>: Compute a time space midpoint chart.Time-space midpoint relationship charts are supported: Doing "-rm chart1 chart2" will calculate the time and location exactly half way between the times and locations as indicated in the two files. Unlike all other types of relationship charts, this one actually exists in space and time, and therefore can be treated like a single chart and can be output to a file with the -o option.
-r[c,m]0 <file1> <file2> <ratio1> <ratio2>: Weighted chart.The -rc composite and -rm time-space midpoint relationship charts may
be weighted to give more influence to one of the charts. When the switches are
invoked as -rc0 or -rm0 they accept two additional parameters which are the
ratio weights to give to the two chart files in question. For example, the
sequence "-rm person1 person2 2 1" will still do a time space midpoint chart,
but the time and location that the chart is cast for will be biased at a 2:1
ratio toward person1, i.e. will be 2/3 of the way from person2's chart info
closer to person1's info.
Note that the -rc0 switch can be used to
generate multiple composite charts between more than two people! A composite
chart between two people can already be done and saved to a file with "-rc
person1 person2 -o0 composite12". A third person can now be merged in by doing a
composite between it and the composite of the first two, but giving the first
result a 2:1 ratio because two charts have already gone into it, by "-rc0
composite12 person3 2 1 -o0 composite123". A fourth person can then be merged in
at a higher ratio with "-rc0 composite123 person4 3 1 -o0 composite1234" and so
on. Actually this method won't always generate a 100% correct multiple composite
chart in cases where the objects are spread out over 180 degrees and the initial
composites put the current midpoint in the wrong half, e.g. if the Suns of
person1 through person3 are 1Can, 29Sag, and 0Ari, then the true composite Sun
is at 0Ari, but composite12 is at 0Lib and hence the final composite is at 0Leo
or 0Sag, in the wrong "quadrant" biased toward the earlier results. Still the
results are useful and the method can be used with -rm0 to get the correct
average between multiple chart locations.
One useful non-astrological function in the program is the ability to determine how much time has passed between two dates, with the -rd switch. As with the -rb option below, this is considered a relationship "chart" because it requires the input of two different dates, and when -rd is in effect, again the standard -v planet position listing will be replaced by a line telling how much time has passed in the interval. The time difference is expressed in seven ways: to the nearest year, month, week, hour, minute, and second. For example, "-rd person1 person2", will display how many years, days, etc person1 is older than person2 (or the other day around). Want to say know how many years older your mother is than you? Just do "-rd momchart yourchart". Want to find out how many days old you will be on Jan. 1, 2000? Do "-rd yourchart tty", and type in the first date of the next millennium, and see what you get! <
-rb <file1> <file2>: Display biorhythm for file1 at time file2.Biorhythm charts are supported by Astrolog with the -rb switch.
Although not directly related to Astrology, the concepts are similar, and adding
this didn't require much extra code, and since some are interested in this, I
felt I'd add it in. The biorhythm theory says that we have three main types of
energy: Physical, Emotional, and Intellectual. These three run in continuous
wave cycles from high to low, each of which repeats about every 30 days or so.
Therefore, a biorhythm chart for a particular day should describe how much
energy one has or how they are feeling in this area. Now, Astrolog considers
biorhythm charts as a type of relationship chart, because in order to generate
one, two dates or charts are needed: the birth date of the person, and the date
to cast their chart for. Technically the program will replace the standard -v
listing of planet positions with the biorhythm chart when -rb is in effect. As
an example, "-rb file1 file2" will cast the chart for the birthday signified by
chart1 or chart2 (whichever is older) for the date in the other file. Remember
that one can substitute the pseudo filename 'tty' to mean get the chart info
from the terminal instead.
The actual biorhythm chart itself will
display, for the day in question, what the percentages of the physical,
emotional, and intellectual cycles are, as numbers from -100% (low ebb) to +100%
(happy and full of energy). In addition, the biorhythm percentages for the seven
days before (T-7 days) and the seven days after (T+7 days) the date in question
will be listed, too, so one can see if the cycles are rising or falling.
Finally, as a cute way to help in interpretation, the program prints the
appropriate smiley, medium, or sad face after each percentage. (BTW, it takes
over 58 years for all three cycles together to synchronize and repeat
themselves.)
There is a distinction between any of the above types of particular
relationship charts and the actual comparison between two separate charts. The
-r0 option is used to generate actual comparison charts. For example, combining
-r0 with the -g switch will cause a full grid chart of the aspects between all
the planets of the two charts (with person1's planets on the vertical axis and
person2's on the horizontal) to be displayed. (Unfortunately, if all 20 of the
default objects are left unrestricted here, the grid will exceed 80 columns,
unless the -Y8 80 column clip feature (described later) is turned on.) The -r0
option can also be used with the -X switch to generate true relationship wheel
charts, (described later). The -r0 option will act like the -r synastry option
in certain displays that can't compare two charts; for example, '-r0 -v' will
act the same as just '-r -v'. (Note: the "-t file" current transit option is
basically a shorthand way of doing "-r0 file now".)
Comparison
relationship charts may also be generated for the -m midpoint and -a aspect list
options. Combining -m with -r0 will yield an ordered list of all midpoints
between all combinations of one planet from chart1 and another planet from
chart2. Combining -a with -r0 will yield a list of all aspects between planets
in the two charts, in order based on what Astrolog think their influences are.
So, if you really want to know if your Sun widely trining your SO's Moon, will
override the effect of your Saturn closely squaring their Mars, do "astrolog -r0
yourchart sochart -a" and see the influence given to each aspect.
This switch is a form of the -r0 relationship comparison charts. This switch, given two files, will compare the natal chart in file1, to the chart of this natal chart progressed to the time specified in file2. This is a shorthand way to the commonly desired comparison of a progressed chart to a natal one. The -y switch may be invoked as -yp <file> which will automatically compare the chart to the current time now. For example, to get a dual graphic wheel chart with your natal planets in the inner wheel, and your current progressed chart on the outer wheel, simply do "-yp yourchart now -X". (There is no easy way to do this otherwise, short of using -o0 position files, since the -p progression switch will affect all charts.) The -rp switch may also be invoked as -rp0, which will do the same thing but as a solar arc progression instead of a secondary progression.
-rt <file1> <file2>: Like -r0 but treat file2 as transiting.The -rt switch will behave exactly like the existing -r0 chart comparison option but with one difference: transit restrictions will affect the second chart. With -r0, both charts are treated as natal charts and hence the normal -R restrictions apply to both, but one may want to have different sets of planets active in the two charts, such as in a wheel chart where transiting planets are being compared to natal. The -y switch which is like the -r0 switch but assumes the current moment now for the second chart, may be done as -yt in the same way. For example, to do a graphic bi-wheel showing your complete natal chart in the inner wheel, and only the current transiting outer planets on the outer wheel, do "astrolog -yt yourchart -X -RT0 jup sat ura nep plu".
-r[3,4]: Make graphics wheel chart tri-wheel or quad-wheel.Astrolog can do tri-wheel and quad-wheel graphics charts. These are like the standard and bi-wheel charts, but with a third and/or fourth ring of planets. The standard or first chart in memory is placed on the outer wheel, next in is the second chart in memory, where the third and/or fourth charts are on the inside. (Note this is different from the bi-wheel graphic which has the first chart on the inside and the second on the outside.) The house cusps and the graphic sidebar if showing will correspond to the info in the first ring. There is never any aspect display in the middle of the wheel, but when the -Xi alternate chart display flag is set, the program will draw dotted lines from each planet in the outer rings to the inner one, as is always done in the bi-wheel chart. The -r3 switch, taking no parameters, puts one in tri-wheel mode, and the -r4 switch puts on in quad-wheel mode. (You can also do -r2 to enter bi-wheel mode, and -r1 or _r to return to the standard single wheel.)
-y <file>: Display current house transits for particular chart.The command switch '-y <file>' can be used as a shortcut way to compute the current transits for the chart in <file> (unless the TIME features are compiled out), which saves you from having to mention the "now" in the -r0 option.
-y[b,d,p,t] <file>: Like -r0 but compare to current time now.The -y option is extended based on the -rb and -rd features. The -yb <file> switch will display the person indicated in file's biorhythm for today. The -yd <file> switch will display how many months, days, etc old the person in the file is right now. Want to know how many minutes old you are? Just do "-yd yourchart". Do the same command again right away and see that you are now a couple seconds older than the first time! There are also switches -yp[0] and -yt which similarly behave like -rp[0] and -rt above but automatically compare to now.
Switches to access graphics
options: |
With this option, the text charts may be displayed in color, as well
as with real graphics characters instead of with things like dashes and pluses.
This makes the text charts look almost as neat as their color graphics
counterparts. All that's needed is a terminal that accepts Ansi escape
sequences. You will get garbage if you include -k on a non-Ansi terminal. (For
this reason, the default for this flag is off, although it can be made on all
the time by setting the appropriate flag in the
Color isn't used randomly but is based on logic. Most colors are very
similar to the ones chosen in the color X charts. In general, everything is
based on the following rules for elements: Fire is Red, Earth is Yellow, Air is
Green, and Water is Blue. Zodiac signs and positions are printed in the color of
their element. Houses are printed in the color of their corresponding sign.
Planets are printed in the color of the sign they rule. As for the other
objects, we have the following colors: Asteroids are in bright purple (magenta),
Uranians are in dim purple, and non-physical points like the Node, Fortune, and
Vertex are in a bluish gray (dark cyan). Stars are either orange if they are
bright (magnitude < 1.0) or a dark red if dimmer. For aspects we have the
following: Conjunctions are Yellow, Oppositions are Blue, Squares are Red,
Trines are Green, Sextiles are Light Blue (Cyan). For the minor aspects we have
magenta for inconjunct/semisextile, orange for semisquare/sesquiquadrature, dark
cyan for all the quintiles, dark purple for all the septiles, and dark red for
all the noviles.
This minor switch is just like the -k switch, however it only toggles whether the high Ascii graphics characters are used, as opposed to -k which toggles both that and whether Ansi colors are used. A system with a black and white monitor may want to use high graphics but not color, while a system with a foreign character set may prefer color but not graphics characters.
-V <25,43,50>: Start up with text mode set to number of rows.For PC's compiled with screen graphics, the -V switch will change the text screen to have the specified number of rows, assuming the hardware available supports it. Legal values are 25, 43, and 50. This most useful as an initial parameter when running the program from Microsoft Windows (see later) to give more text rows to work in, or in the -Q loop mode (see later), as well as being another way of getting to the functionality of the DOS "mode" command. Note that for Astrolog builds made using the Borland compiler, only the 25 and 50 line modes are available; attempting to enter a 43 line mode will go to 50 rows.
-X: Create a graphics chart instead of displaying it as text.This is the general switch, which means display a chart in an X window instead of on the screen in some form. For example, the command 'astrolog -i mychart -X' will open a new window and display the chart in question in it. (Of course, all the other switches, e.g. -R, -c, -1, etc, can be used to change what info is actually displayed.) If you use the -L astro-graph switch in addition to this, the appropriate Astro*Carto*Graphy map will come up in a window instead of the earlier boring list of longitudes. (e.g. astrolog -i me -X -L) The -Z and -g switches will produce their own chart types as well, although, of course, only one type of chart can be in a window at any given time.
-Xb: Create bitmap file instead of putting graphics on screen.This switch will cause a bitmap file to be produced and written to a
file instead of putting the graphics on the actual screen. This is useful if you
want to convert the graphics to different formats, e.g. so they can be displayed
on alternate systems, etc. Note that -Xb (or any other -X<letter> switch)
automatically assumes the -X switch above, so 'astrolog -i file -Xb' is
sufficient (and you don't also have to include the -X).
Bitmap files may
be generated at any size without running out of memory. If any particular sized
bitmap it too large to fit in memory all at once, Astrolog will generate it in
multiple stages, using available memory to do one section at a time, writing
each piece to the file as we go along. (This is similar to the banding method
often used to print large images to printers.) For versions of PC Astrolog
before 4.20, there was barely enough memory in the 640K available to generate
even the standard 640x480 color bitmap. Now one will always be able to do any
size allowed, even the maximum of 2730 by 2730 yielding a file nearly four
megabytes in size! We do however have to draw the chart once for each band, so
if a bitmap is done in two stages, it will take nearly twice as long to
generate. Larger bitmaps require more stages and more time, but we can at least
always make them. This banding is only done for the Windows bitmap format; the
other formats still need to be done in one shot, however the other formats are
usually done on non-DOS systems where memory isn't limited to 640K.
The bitmap file can be written in five different formats; by default
whatever format specified at compile time is used. One can change this mode by
putting an extra character on the command line after the -Xb switch.
Specifically, to override the compile time mode, use -Xbn for a standard X11
bitmap, -Xbc for an X11 bitmap with some white space removed, -Xbv for a very
compact X11 bitmap (which may not be able to be processed correctly by all X
programs), -Xba for a one character per pixel Ascii dump identical to the result
generated from the X11 bmtoa program, and finally -Xbb for the Windows .bmp
bitmap described below.
One of the available bitmap formats are the .bmp
extension bitmap files commonly used on PC's running under Microsoft Windows. If
you have a PC running Windows, you can set your root background to be one of
these monochrome Astrolog bitmaps by: use the -Xb option to create a bitmap
file, then rename it to have the extension .bmp and put it in your Windows
subdirectory, then go into Program Manager -> Control Panels -> Desktop
and select this file to be your "wallpaper". These bitmap files may be generated
in either color or black and white. By default, all graphic charts will be in
color, unless specified otherwise. Color is most useful for these PC bitmaps
(-Xbb), although a color bitmap will take up more disk space. X11 bitmap files
will always be output in monochrome format, since color .xbm files don't exist.
A color Ascii file (-Xba) will have the color value of each pixel converted to a
hexadecimal number, instead of being in the format generated by the Unix bmtoa
utility in the case of monochrome charts.
Astrolog can generate PostScript graphics files. PostScript is a
graphics format different from bitmaps in that it's based on "strokes" as
opposed to "pixels". With a stroke graphic, an image is defined in terms of
"circle here, line there, etc" instead of a large array. This means PostScript
graphics can be printed at any size without losing accuracy or becoming
"blocky", and look perfectly smooth when printed to a laser printer. A
PostScript file is also about an order of magnitude smaller in size than a
corresponding bitmap file.
To generate a PostScript chart, use the -Xp
switch. This will work just like bitmap files for all Astrolog's graphics
charts, in that you will be prompted for a file to write the graphics to unless
you explicitly pass a file to the -Xo switch. The type of file generated will be
an encapsulated PostScript graphic (which are usually seen with a .eps
extension) meaning that it's made to be inserted into a document and scaled and
so on and printed from there. A true independent PostScript file which can be
sent directly to a printer can be generated by specifying -Xp as -Xp0 instead.
As with bitmaps, it is recommended to include -Xm for a monochrome graphic
unless you have a color printer, and to include -Xr so the chart is black on a
white background (so that you don't cover 90% of the page with ink when
printing)!
There is a compile time option #define PS in the astrolog.h
which can be commented out to disable the -Xp switch and all PostScript
features. Note that on an X window system one may directly print out a bitmap to
a PostScript printer even without this internal support. One simply brings up an
Astrolog chart in an X window, or creates a bitmap and displays that bitmap in a
window using some other graphics program, and then uses the Unix command "xdpr"
to print it, with a line such as "xdpr -P<postscriptprintername> -device
ps", and then clicking on the window to print it to the specified printer. Of
course, the native PostScript charts will look much smoother.
Special
thanks goes to Mr. Brian D. Willoughby (who BTW also lives really close to where
I work, and who helped me restore the files on my NeXT optical disk after it
crashed thereby recovering my only copies of Astrolog versions 1.00 through
2.00) who wrote the routines and parts in the xgeneral.c file which deal with
PostScript (e.g. what's the PS command to draw a line, ellipse, filled
rectangle, etc.) Basically, if it's inside #ifdef PS, Brian likely gets credit
for it, for anything else (except the placalc.c file of course, and the Matrix
routines which are marked as so) I'm the one to blame. :)
-XM switch: Yet another graphics format, Astrolog can generate
Windows metafiles. Metafiles are those files (usually with extension .wmf and
often called "pictures" for users) that are frequently used in Microsoft Windows
for clipart and other such things. (Astrolog is one of the few non-Windows
programs which can generate metafiles internally without relying on Windows
itself.)
Like PostScript, metafiles are a "stroke" graphic format.
Metafiles are in binary format unlike the human readable Ascii text in
PostScript files, and hence are smaller in size for the same image. Although the
same chart generated in PostScript and metafile format will more or less look
the same, for PC and Windows users, metafiles are preferred. (For Unix systems
PostScript is preferred since there aren't many Unix apps out there that know or
care about Windows metafiles, while PostScript is a standard used everywhere.) A
metafile can be inserted as a picture into Word, CorelDraw, and pasted into
Windows Write and many other applications. Unlike PostScript, a metafile can be
displayed on the screen in your document, instead of like most EPS files which
when displayed by Windows just indicate that "this is an PostScript image" and
have to be printed to be seen. A metafile can actually be edited in MS Draw and
many other drawing applications where one may modify the Astrolog chart, change
colors, add text, and so on before printing!
Metafiles (and PostScript
graphics) have the option to include actual system fonts for text, as well as
even zodiac sign, planet, and aspect glyphs! This will look smoother than having
Astrolog fake all the characters with 45 degree line segments. There is a
setting in the
For these metafiles, the following Windows TrueType fonts are used:
Courier-New for text, Times New Roman for house labels, Wingdings for sign
glyphs, and Astro-SemiBold for Planets and Aspect glyphs. All of these fonts
should be installed in your system already except likely Astro-SemiBold. This
font, created by Kenneth Hirst, is available from the Magitech FTP site in the
directory /pub/astrology/fonts in the file 6ttfont.zip. It's also available at
Kenneth Hirst's Web site at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/kenneth_hirst/download.htm. To install
it on Windows, unzip this file, then go into the Windows Control Panel and
select the Fonts icon. Click on the Add button and select the file
"astro-se.ttf" that was in the zip archive, and the font will be installed on
your system. If it's not installed, the planet and aspect glyphs will appear as
letters. (Hack: If you can't get access to the Astro font, but still want all
the other fonts to be included, one can set the value of the -YXf "use actual
fonts" setting in
It is
possible that a metafile using all the system fonts may print perfectly to a
PostScript printer, but an PS file itself won't find the Astro font. This is
because the Astro font may be installed on your Windows system, but not on the
printer itself, and because when printing a metafile to a printer, Windows will
conveniently automatically embed the necessary font information in what it sends
to the printer if the font isn't already there. Note that one may actually
generate a PostScript chart from a metafile in Windows by using the Print
Manager (or the Setup dialog button available from within those Windows host
applications that use the standard Print dialog) to set printing to be to an
encapsulated PS file instead of directly to a printer. Of course doing this
won't likely be needed since Astrolog can generate PS files natively.
Like bitmaps, creating metafiles is also efficient in how it uses
memory. Astrolog will attempt to allocate a large buffer for them, and keep
decreasing the amount until it succeeds. (Note that the related PostScript
charts don't need any memory buffers because they're written to disk while being
generated.) There is a compile time option #define META in the astrolog.h which
can be commented out to disable the -XM switch and all metafile features.
This switch is used in conjunction with the -Xb, -Xp, or -XM options, to specify the name of the file to write the graphic image to. If not included the program will prompt you for the filename before writing to disk.
-XB: Display X chart on root instead of in a separate window.For X window systems only, this switch will cause the chart graphics to be displayed directly on the root window. This action occurs very quickly since the program does not have to write a separate bitmap file and call xsetroot -bitmap on it (although one could easily do this if they want to). For example, one could put the line 'astrolog -n -XB' in their .xsession file and whenever they log in, their background will be set to a chart of the current state of the planets!
-Xm: Create monochrome graphic instead of one in color.For systems without color monitors, the -Xm switch will create all charts in monochrome B/W mode. One can still generate color bitmap files on a monochrome system, just can't properly display them of course.
-Xr: Create chart graphic in reversed colors (white background).Normally the charts comes up white on a black background. To get the chart or bitmap displayed in reverse video (black on white), use this -Xr switch.
-Xw <hor> [<ver>], -ge[..]: Change the size of chart graphic.The default graphic chart size is 480x480 units. This can be changed
with the -Xw switch. -Xw with one argument n will make an n by n chart; -Xw with
two arguments x and y will make an x by y image. Note that this switch will not
affect astro-graph or aspect grid windows; to change the size of these use -Xs
below.
For X window systems only, Astrolog accepts the standard
-geometry switch (which can be abbreviated as -geom or anything starting with
-ge). This is only an alias to this -Xw chart size switch, in that it takes the
same parameters in the same way. PC graphics charts may be automatically sized
to the dimensions of the screen by passing zero to either or both parameters of
the -Xw switch. (Without this, to fill the screen or prevent clipping, one would
have to find out the dimensions of whatever graphics mode beforehand, or
manually press the 'B' key to do the same thing.) If -Xw is passed zero under X
Windows, it will use the compile time default window size.
Astrolog has its own internal character set definitions for the glyphs which it just draws at a higher scale based on the -Xs setting. This can make glyphs at higher scales look slightly blocky. To help prevent this, there's a second alternate "internal font" of double sized glyphs for planets, signs, aspects, and house numbers, which allow the 100% or small scale, and the 200% or medium scale glyphs, to appear smooth to the nearest pixel. (The improved larger glyphs are also used at the 400% or huge scale, and when printing.)
-Xi: Create chart graphic in slightly modified form.Certain people have asked that some of the graphics charts be
modified in various minor ways, i.e. in either adding or removing certain
information. Rather than add a new hard to remember minor option for each
change, I have added one major switch which covers all the charts. The -Xi
switch will invoke this "induce/inhibit information" option, and pressing the
'i' key in a window will accomplish the same thing by toggling the mode's
status. By default, all the charts are as before, but when this bonus option is
set, it affects each graphic chart in a different way, as follows:
This switch toggles off the border setting that is also interactively
toggled by pressing the 'b' key when a graphics screen is up. This switch allows
one to toggle the border for graphics files as well as set the default for this
in the
This switch will inhibit labeling with glyphs or text abbreviations, the spots indicating the positions of planets in the various graphics charts. This is just the command line counterpart to the existing functionality accessed by the 'l' key.
-Xj: Don't clear screen between chart updates, drawing trails.This switch will toggle on a flag which will cause the graphics screen to not be cleared on new chart draws. Pressing the 'j' key interactively will toggle the same setting. This feature is used to draw "jet trail" streaks on the screen for some charts, such as the -S orbit and -Z local horizon. If you bring up one of these charts, turn on the setting, and then animate forward, a "time exposure" can be done showing the orbits of planets or an object's path across the sky. (When this is active, entering animation won't automatically jump to the flicker free mode on PC's, because that would make us flip back and forth between two pages breaking the continuity of our "streaks".)
-X1 <object>: Rotate wheel charts so object is at left edge.Yet another graphics feature, this allows one to effectively rotate one of the graphic wheel charts so that a particular object is hinged to the left hand (east) edge of the chart. Given the -X1 switch with the index value of an object, the wheel is drawn but always rotated so that the object in question is at the left side of the chart. By default we have the ascendant at the left edge, of course. This is useful for tracking important planets so one knows where they are, but yet doesn't distort the house cusps as the -1 switch does.
-X2 <object>: Rotate wheel charts so object is at top edge.This is identical to the -X1 switch above except here we rotate the entire graphic wheel so the object in question is always at the top of the chart. Note that during a day, the degree difference between the Ascendant and Midheaven varies in most house systems, so that with the Ascendant hinged at the left edge, the Midheaven will wobble back and forth near the top of the wheel. If you prefer, "-X2 18" will fix the Midheaven at the top of the screen, and the chart will be like before except the Ascendant will be the one to wobble near the left edge of the chart.
-Xd <name>, -di[..] <name>: Open X window on specified display.For X windows only, the -Xd <display> switch can be used to change the display to bring the window up on. Normally, the X window will always come up on the current display, but we can do things like "astrolog -Xd machine:0.0" and have the window appear there. In addition, the program will accept this string through the standard "-display" (which can be abbreviated as "-disp" or anything starting with "-di") switch common to most X11 applications.
-XW: Simply create an image of the world map.Believe it or not, I painstakingly entered the data for the world map used by the program by hand using an Atlas during a long week. If you just want to see the map of the world by itself without any astro-graph lines on it, use the -XW switch.
-XW0: Like -XW but do a non-rectangular Mollewide projection.The -XW0 switch is just like the normal -XW switch in that it just displays the world map and nothing else, except that this -XW0 map generated will be in what's called the Mollewide projection, a good looking form often used for maps of the world, as opposed to the standard rectangular map projection used in -XW which distorts the polar regions of the globe across the top and bottom of the screen. (The Mollewide projection pinches the polar regions together, generating a elliptical map, which is similar to the -XG globe displays, but which shows the whole world instead of just half.)
-XG [<degrees>]: Display the image of the world as a globe.Once we have the data for the map of the world, there are several
neat things we can do with it; for instance, with a little trigonometry and
clipping, we can bring up a view of a globe, which is what the -XG switch does.
An optional argument will specify a rotation value in degrees to display
different parts of the globe. (The globe seems to look best for a -Xw window
size of around 350.)
Note that the -XW and -XW0 maps can be animated
like as this -XG globe display can. Animation of these maps are done by shifting
the whole map to one side or the other. In fact, such a feature can be used
indirectly to shift one of the X window astro-graph charts (which are drawn on
the world map) from the normal case of having the date line on the edges of the
screen: Go into the world map or globe display, animate it a bit, and then
change graphic modes to display the astro-graph chart, and it will be shifted by
the corresponding amount. (Note that animating the astro-graph screen itself
will change the chart info, not how the screen itself is done.) Because the -XW
world map, and -XP polar globe display, can be animated just as the -XG general
globe display can, the -XW and -XP switches accept optional parameters on the
command line that will specify what degree (from 0 to 359) to start the map at,
just like the -XG switch does. In addition, the -XG option itself accepts a
second optional parameter, which is the starting angle for the globe's tilt,
from -90 to +90 degrees.
The -XP option will generate a polar view of the Earth as a globe. This is like the -XG globe option except that the view is always from the top (or bottom). By default, the view is looking down on the north pole with 0 deg W/E toward the bottom of the screen. (Animation mode will cause the view to spin about the center of the screen.) To see a view of the south pole hemisphere, go into the bonus information mode described above ('i' key). Again, like with all the other X window display modes, one can enter this display with a keystroke: press 'P' in any Astrolog window and it will revert to this display.
-XF: Display maps as constellations on the celestial sphere.A graphics chart showing all 88 of the astronomical constellations is available with the -XF switch. When this mode is active, the -XW world map and -XG and -XP globe chart modes will draw the outlines of the constellations on the celestial sphere instead of continents on the Earth. Pressing the 'F' key when a graphics screen is up will toggle this setting on. (If you aren't already in one of the map graphics modes, -XF and the 'F' key will switch to one.) The constellation maps may be rotated, tilted, and animated and can do everything else just like the world maps, and depict the sky as if you were looking up at it from Earth. In the -Xi display modification mode, the locations of the planets in the current chart will be shown among the constellations. The constellations are labeled with their correct abbreviations, and you can see the familiar image outlines such as the Great Bear, Cygnus, and all the others, as well as the constellations named after the twelve signs of the zodiac, and how these astrological signs compare with their corresponding constellations. I happen to have four planets in my own natal chart in the constellation Ophiuchus, while there are several other constellations very close to the ecliptic which planets (other than the Sun) often enter, e.g. the Moon will technically be in Orion on September 27th. As with Astrolog's map of the world, I entered the data describing the irregular shape of each constellation myself, and the boundaries are accurate although rounded to the nearest degree. This is a unique feature that isn't in any astronomical programs that I know of much less astrological! For a demo of this, do "astrolog -i yourchartfile -XF -XG -Xi -Xn -U" and see a rotating celestial sphere of the constellations and stars, and where the planets in your natal chart are located within them.
-Xn [<mode>]: Start up chart or globe display in animation mode.The -Xn [<value>] option can be used to start up an X window in animation mode. It a window, one would have to explicitly press 'N' or a shift+number key to start the window animation. Without a parameter after -Xn, the option will start it up in continuous update to "now" mode (which is like pressing 'N' in that any chart will be erased with the current chart now.) The switch can accept parameters from 1..9, corresponding to the animation rates obtained by pressing shift 1..9 in the window, i.e. update whatever chart is passed to it seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, etc. later each time.
-HX: Display list of key press options for screen graphics.This switch prints out the list of keys one can press when a graphics screen is being displayed. This list may also be obtained by pressing the '?' key interactively when graphics are actually up. With -HX, this may be done anytime and be printed out or sent to a file like all other Astrolog tables.
-W <value>: Run given Windows menu command internally.For the Windows version only, this obscure switch allows one to
invoke a menu command from a command line, taking one numeric parameter
indicating the item to run. Values 40001 through 40229 are valid menu commands,
where the list of what number corresponds to what command is in the resource.h
source file. An example use of this is to put "-W 40040" in your
For the Windows version only, this switch specifies the animation
delay, taking one parameter indicating the number of milliseconds between the
start of screen updates. This is the same as the "animation delay" edit control
in the Graphics Settings dialog, and exists here as a switch so one may set a
default value for it in the
For the Windows version only, this switch allows one to customize the menu text for the macro running commands, taking two parameters, the macro from 1-48 whose menu item to change, and the new text to put on the menu. An ampersand "&" may be used to put an underscore under the character following it, which will be used as the standard Windows menu shortcut for the command. For example, doing -WM 12 "Best friend's chart", will edit the last item on the "Edit Run Macro (Normal Set)" submenu to read "Best friend's chart". After it will still appear "F12" as this doesn't change the direct keyboard shortcut. (One should of course also use the -M0 switch to assign a macro to slot 12 here to actually display your friend's chart when the macro is run.)
-Wn: Don't redraw screen until user forces update.For the Windows version only, this switch toggles it so that the window will not redraw its contents until you force an update (with the Redraw Screen command or by pressing space). Normally the screen updates after every command or whenever a section of the window gets uncovered. However this constant redrawing may cause unwanted waiting on a slower system, especially if one is tweaking various minor settings in say a large transit search, and doesn't want to wait after each modification.
Astrolog (version 5.40) obscure command
switches: |
This switch was described in an earlier section.Look up
-Yn: Compute location of true instead of mean node.This switch allows you to set whether the North Node in Astrolog (object number 16) is the Mean or the True node of the Moon. The mean Node is the default, but toggling on the -Yn flag will do the True node. (The default may also be set at compile time via the TRUENODE #ifdef.)
-Yd: Display dates in D/M/Y instead of M/D/Y format.This is a switch which determines whether dates are displayed in Month/Day/Year order or in the more "European" Day/Month/Year format. Toggling on or off this flag will specify the DMY or MDY format everywhere in the program from text wheel charts to transit charts to the chart info displayed in graphics charts.
-Yt: Display times in 24 hour instead of am/pm format.This is another option which is just like the above except that it affects how times are displayed throughout the program. When clear, times will be printed in am/pm format, while when set they will be in the more "European" 24 hour clock.
-YC: Automatically ignore insignificant house cusp aspects.This option toggles on a useful flag to automatically prevent display of irrelevant or redundant aspects involving house cusps, processing them in a more intuitive manner. This affects charts such as -t transit search lists, -T transit influence charts, and -a aspect lists. First, aspects other than conjunctions to minor cusps will be ignored, e.g. a sextile to the 12th house cusp is redundant and isn't really useful, as we are more interested in the conjunction to the 2nd house. Minor aspects to the angles such as the Ascendant and Midheaven are left alone. The setting also prevents redundant aspects to two items that are always opposite each other, e.g. if a transit list shows a trine to the Midheaven, it won't show a sextile to the Descendant right next to it.
-Y8: Clip text charts at the rightmost (e.g. 80th) column.This setting when active will stop printing lines of text within charts if they're long enough to go beyond the right edge of the screen. This can be used to prevent text from wrapping around the screen to the next line. By default, with all objects unrestricted, certain charts will have rows more than 80 columns wide, which can break up the chart making it difficult to read, e.g. the -r0 -g relationship aspect grid, the -E ephemeris listing, and the -L astro-graph columns when uranians are included. With this option on however, these and any other charts that can go beyond column 80, will always be displayed on one line, with columns that would go beyond the 80th not getting printed. Note that this setting can actually clip at any column instead of just the 80th, where the screen width value used is the same as used for interpretation formatting, i.e. the optional parameter to the -I switch.
-YQ <rows>: Pause text scrolling after a page full has printed.This feature gives you the option to have Astrolog automatically stop
whenever the screen gets filled with text and prompt before scrolling to the
next page. It takes one parameter to define the number of rows to print before
prompting the user to press return to continue. If set to zero, the feature will
be turned off and Astrolog will print continuously until done. This helps those
who may be concerned about the program scrolling things off the screen before
they can read it. Without this one would have to press Ctrl-S to have the system
pause printing, send output to a file, or be on a system with scrollbars to see
everything. This feature is on by default and set to 24 lines, although this can
be changed easily in the
Astrolog can still read in all old style -o info and -o0 position chart files generated by previous versions of the program without problem. Not only that, but it will write out these old formats too if the -Yo switch is put into effect. When set, it will output -o and -o0 files exactly as in version 4.10 and before, in simple lists of numbers in fixed fields instead of in generic command files.
-Yc: Angular cusp objects are house positions instead of angles.This obscure switch determines whether the angular house cusp objects (i.e. indexes 21, 24, 27, and 30) contain the position of their respective house cusps, or the positions of the Ascendant, Nadir, Descendant, and Midheaven. These positions are always the same except for certain house systems, e.g. in the Equal house system the position of the 10th cusp is different from the Midheaven. Normally the angular house objects always contain the positions of the Asc, MC, etc, however this feature gives the user the option to have the objects' contents be the positions of the cusps as defined by the house system in use.
-Yz <min>: Forward clock by amount for current moment charts.This obscure switch, taking one parameter for the number of minutes,
allows one to offset forward or backward the time considered to be the current
moment now. This is useful if your -n now charts always seem to be a few hours
or whatever off, as seems to be the case on certain Mac or Amiga systems. For
example, if -n says it's 3:30pm when it's really 1:30pm, doing "-Yz -120" will
back up the clock appropriately (and change the planetary positions slightly
too). It's important that this switch be used as a last resort instead of first,
where one should first check their system time, the system time zone setting
such as may be set with the TZ environment variable, and Astrolog's default time
zone. A line for this setting appears in the default
This command switch is used with the -l sector charts and sets whether a sector is a plus zone sector or not. Taking one parameter of a sector number, it toggles the plus zone status of it. Like the -R restriction switches, the "_" prefix may be used to make a sector minus and the "=" prefix to make a sector plus.
-YP <-1,0,1>: Set how Arabic parts are computed for night charts.This is an obscure option allowing one to force whether night chart formula inverting is done in the -P Arabic part chart list, since sources differ on which parts are best inverted. This option takes one parameter, either -1, 0, or 1. Zero is the default setting, meaning the program will invert only those parts that have the flip flag set, for charts cast at night. If the setting is 1, then no inverting will ever be done for any part, even in night charts. If the setting is -1, then inverting will always be done for every part, even in day charts. Note that the POF does appear both in the -P full part list, as well as being the only part that's also a standard object (object #18) meaning it's the only part one may automatically do aspects or transits to. Note also that the -P list POF inverts for night charts, meaning the standard object in the main list does too.
-Yb <days>: Set number of days to span for biorhythm chart.This switch, taking one parameter, specifies how many days to include in the biorhythm charts. It will control the number of days spanned in the text biorhythm listing, and number of days plotted before and after the given day in the graphic biorhythm chart.
-YE <obj> <semi-major axis> <eccentricity (3)> <inclination (3)> <perihelion (3)> <ascending node (3)> <time offset (3)> Change orbit of object to be the given elements.This feature allows one to "define their own planets", by changing the orbital elements of one of Astrolog's objects. This switch takes 17 parameters, which specify all the data needed for any elliptical orbit around the Sun. The parameters are as follows: First is the object to redefine; second is the semi-major axis of the new orbit, in AU; next are three parameters for the eccentricity of the orbit's ellipse; next are three parameters for the inclination of the orbit with respect to the ecliptic, in degrees; next are three parameters for the argument of perihelion, which is the "rotation" of the orbit in degrees or how far away its perihelion is from zero Aries; next are three parameters defining the ascending node, which is the "tilt" of the orbit or how far away the point where the orbit intersects the ecliptic is from zero Aries; finally are three parameters for the "mean anomaly" which is basically where on the orbit the planet is at a reference time and how fast it moves along it. Many of the above element settings take three values when it seems like only one is needed. The second and third values are used as linear and quadratic error factors to the first, and can be zero unless every last bit of accuracy that can be provided outside of ephemeris files is needed. Note that these parameters basically replace the same elements as used in the old Matrix formulas. This means the -YE switch settings are ignored when the -b ephemeris flag is in effect. Note also that the Matrix formulas have special error factors applied on top of their main elements for Jupiter through Pluto, hence it's recommended to only redefine asteroids, uranians, or inner planets. The following example will roughly move Venus into Earth's orbit: "-YE 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 23000".
-YR <obj1> <obj2> <flag1>..<flag2>: Set restrictions for object range.This is like the -R switch except that it explicitly sets the restrictions for a range of Astrolog objects instead of just one. The first two parameters specify the lower and upper object bounds, and are followed by zero or one flag parameters to clear or set the restriction status of each object within the range.
-YRT <obj1> <obj2> <flag1>..<flag2>: Transit restrictions for range.This behaves exactly like the -YR switch above except it affects transit restrictions, like how the -RT switch is to -R.
-YR0 <flag1> <flag2>: Set restrictions for sign, direction changes.This sets the restriction status for sign and direction changes. It takes two parameter flags, with the first setting for sign changes, and the second direction changes. This affects the -d daily event searches, and works like the -R restrictions but for all types of these special events, instead of all aspects or all events containing a particular object.
-YRZ <rise> <zenith> <set> <nadir>: Set restrictions for -Zd chart.This switch allows one to determine which events appear in the -Zd rising and setting time chart. It takes four parameters, which respectively control whether rising events, zenith transit events, setting events, and nadir transit events are included in the chart. A zero value indicates to include that event, while a one means to restrict it. For example, to include only rising and setting events in the -Zd chart, do "-YRZ 0 1 0 1".
-YAo <asp1> <asp2> <orb1>..<orb2>: Set aspect orbs for range.This is like -Ao but sets the orbs for a range of Astrolog aspects instead of just one. The first two parameters specify the lower and upper aspect index bounds, and are followed by a list of orb values for each aspect in the range.
-YAm <obj1> <obj2> <orb1>..<orb2>: Set max planet orbs for range.This is like -Am but sets the maximum aspect orbs allowed to a range of objects instead of just one. Again, the first two parameters are the lower and upper object indexes, followed by the list of max orb values.
-YAd <obj1> <obj2> <orb1>..<orb2>: Set planet orb additions for range.This is like -Ad but sets the planet orb addition values for a range of objects instead of just one. Again, the first two parameters are the bound indexes, and are followed by the list of planet orb additions.
-YAa <asp1> <asp2> <ang1>..<ang2>: Set planet aspect angles for range.This is like -Aa bor each aspect in the range.
-Yj <obj1> <obj2> <inf1>..<inf2>: Set influences for object range.This sets the powers or influences of the given range of planets, when considered in a natal chart, as used in charts such as the -j influence chart, -a aspect influence list, and -T transit influence list.
-YjC <cusp1> <cusp2> <inf1>..<inf2>: Set influences for house cusps.This sets the influences for the given range of houses, as used in charts such as -j.
-YjA <asp1> <asp2> <inf1>..<inf2>: Set influences for aspect range.This sets the influences for the given range of aspects, as used in charts such as the -j influence chart, -a aspect influence list, and -T and -D transit lists.
-YjT <obj1> <obj2> <inf1>..<inf2>: Set transit influences for range.This sets the influences of the given range of planets, just like -Yj, except here for when the planets are transiting, as used in charts such as the -T transit and -D external planets influence lists.
-Yj0 <inf1> <inf2> <inf3> <inf4>: Set influences given to planets in ruling sign, exalted sign, ruling house, exalted house.This switch takes four parameters and sets respectively, the extra influences given to a planet when it's in the sign it rules, when it's in the sign it exalts in, when it's in the house corresponding to the sign it rules, and when it's in the house corresponding to the sign it exalts in. These values are used in examples such as the -j influence chart.
-YJ <obj> <sign> <cosign>: Set sign planet rules and co-rules.This switch allows one to customize the rulerships of a given planet. It takes three parameters, the object to modify, the zodiac sign for it to rule, and a second sign for it to co-rule. Pass in the value zero to make a planet not rule any sign. For example, Jupiter by default rules Sagittarius and co-rules Pisces. If you'd prefer it to rule Cancer and not have a co-rulership, do "-YJ Jup Can 0".
-YJ0 <obj> <sign>: Set zodiac sign given planet exalts in.Similar to the -YJ switch, this allows one to customize the zodiac sign a given planet exalts in. It takes two parameters, the object to modify, and the new sign to exalt in (with a zero value meaning no exaltation). For example, to make Pluto exalt in Aries (and hence implicitly be debilitated in the opposite sign Libra) do "-YJ0 Plu Ari".
-YI <obj> <string>: Customize interpretation for object.-YI <obj> <string>: This sets the meaning for the given
planet or object, i.e. the part of one's mind the planet represents. For
example, the default setting for Jupiter would be: -YI 6 "enthusiastic,
faithful, wise, expansive, spontaneous nature".
-YIC <house>
<string>: This sets the meaning for the given house, i.e. the area of life
that house presents. For example, the default for the first house is: -YIC 1
"establishment of personal identity".
-YIa <sign> <string>:
This sets the characteristics for the given sign, i.e. adjectives describing it.
For example, the default for Gemini is: -YIa 3 "inquisitive, witty, perceptive,
adaptable".
-YIv <sign> <string>: This sets the desires for
the given sign, i.e. verbs describing what something characterized by it seeks.
For example, the default for Virgo is: -YIv 6 "works toward perfection".
YIA <asp> <string>: This sets the meaning for the given
aspect, i.e. the type of interaction going on when the aspect is in effect. For
example, the default for the Trine is: -YIA 4 "is in harmony with". Special note
for hackers: If the optional characters "%s" appear in the given string
anywhere, Astrolog will replace them with an appropriate adverb indicating how
strong the effect of the aspect is (and include the trailing space). For
example, the real default for Trine is: -YIA 4 "is %sin harmony with", where the
"%s" will is replaced with "always ", "somewhat ", etc, as
appropriate.
-YIA0 <asp> <string>: This sets the conclusion
for the given aspect, i.e. an additional sentence about it. For example, the
default for the Opposition is: -YIA0 5 "Adaptation is required by both sides".
-YkC <col1> <col2> <col3> <col4> switch: This
switch defines the colors used for the four elements, and takes four parameters,
for fire, earth, air, and water, in that order. The colors used for planets are
based on the element of the sign they rule, so this affects the colors of the
main planets too. For example, to make earth be green and air yellow, instead of
the other way around as Astrolog used to always force, do "-YkC 9 10 11 12" or
"-YkC Red Green Yellow Blue" or just "-YkC red gre yel blu".
-YkA
<asp1> <asp2> <colors> switch: This defines the colors used
for a range of aspects. The first two parameters are the lower and upper indexes
of the aspects to modify, and are followed by one color parameter for each
aspect in the range. For example, to highlight Trines by making them white and
all the other major aspects dark blue, do "-YkA 1 5 dkb dkb dkb whi dkb".
-Yk0 <val1> <val2> <colors> switch: This sets a range
of colors used other places in the program (excluding elements and aspects)
whose default colors are one of the colors of the rainbow. The first two
parameters are values from 1 to 7 indicating the lower and upper bounds of the
default colors to redefine, and are followed by new actual colors to use
instead. The seven indexes represent the colors Red, Orange, Yellow, Green,
Cyan, Blue, and Purple. For example, if you want to change the color used for
the Uranians from their default of purple to orange, do "-Yk0 7 7 orange" and
you've effectively "redefined the color purple".
-Yk <val1>
<val2> <colors> switch: Like -Yk0 above this also sets a range of
colors as used many places in the program, except this allows one to redefine
all the standard or obscure colors (i.e. the other nine that aren't one of the
rainbow colors covered above). Again the first two parameters indicate the range
of colors to change which are from 0 to 8, and are followed by the new colors to
use. The nine indexes represent in order the colors Black, White, LtGray,
DkGray, Maroon, DkGreen, DkCyan, DkBlue, and Magenta. For example, to change the
highlight color as used in graphics charts to draw borders and the like from
LtGray to Yellow, do "-Yk 2 2 yellow". (Note that you can use this to even
"change" the colors Black and White to draw graphics on whatever background
color you want.)
-YXG
<0-2><0-2><0-2><0-3>: Select among different graphic
glyphs for Capricorn, Uranus, Pluto, and Lilith.
Astrolog has the ability to choose between different common glyphs
for various astrological symbols. One may optionally display charts with the
"European" version of the Capricorn glyph, instead of the more twisty "American"
type glyph. One may display charts with the "astronomical" version of the Uranus
glyph using a dotted circle with an ascending arrow, instead of the more
astrological "Herschel" glyph with the crescent bounded cross over a circle. One
may display with the "astronomical" version of the Pluto glyph as the "PL"
initials, instead of the more "astrological" version with the circle over
crescent over cross. Finally one may choose to display Lilith as a small
reversed crescent instead of as a circle with a line through it.
The
-YXG switch changes the glyphs to use for these signs and planets that may be
drawn in more than one way. It takes one parameter, a four digit number
specifying the glyphs to use for Capricorn (1000's place digit), Uranus (100's
place), Pluto (10's place), and Lilith (1's place). For each position, the digit
"0" means to leave a glyph alone, while "1" means set to what's generally
considered the "American" form, and "2" means to what's generally considered a
"European" form. (For Lilith only, one may also choose the digit "3", which is
the "U" shaped South Node glyph.) For example, "-YXG 0120" leaves the glyphs for
Capricorn and Lilith at their present setting, sets Uranus to be the "Herschel"
glyph, and Pluto to be the astronomical "P" glyph. The default selection is
"1111", but many astrologers on the Eastern side of the Atlantic may prefer
"2222".
This sets the size of the graphic -g aspect and midpoint grids, i.e. the number of cell rows and columns available to draw items in. Aspect grids by default are always 20 by 20 cells (21 by 21 for the -r0 relationship comparison grids counting the index row) to account for the default number of objects active. If this size value is too high (or objects are restricted), there will be unused rows at the bottom, while if it's too low (or objects are added), rows will be clipped off the bottom.
-YXf <val>: Set usage of actual system fonts in graphic file.This sets whether or not actual system fonts (instead of Astrolog's vector graphics) are used for glyphs and text in PostScript and Windows metafile graphics files. Zero means no system fonts, while one means use Courier, Wingdings for metafiles, and the Astro font. (This can also be set to the hack value of two if you don't have the Astro font, which means don't try to use this system font but do use all the others.)
-YXp <-1,0,1>: Set paper orientation for PostScript files.This allows one to set the page orientation for full PostScript graphics files as generated with the -Xp0 switch. If the orientation parameter value is positive, that means the chart will be printed in portrait mode, while if negative, it will be in landscape mode. If the orientation value is set to zero (the default), then the program will decide based on the size of the current chart, with charts with wider horizontal sizes (e.g. astro-graph charts and wheel charts with sidebars) being in landscape, and charts with horizontal sizes less than or equal to the vertical (e.g. aspect grids and wheel charts without sidebars) being in portrait.
-YXp0 <hor> <ver>: Set paper size for PostScript files.One may also choose the paper size of full -Xp0 PostScript graphics charts. There are two parameters given which specify the horizontal and vertical size in inches of the paper to be printed upon. By default this is 8.5" x 11". If you have say 8.5" x 14" legal size or A4 paper in your printer it can be used just as easily. (Note: It's possible that at least some systems or drivers may clip all graphics beyond 8.5" x 11", but excluding any external restrictions Astrolog's PostScript should allow one to go beyond these limits.)
-YX <hi-res> <lo-res>: Set modes to use for PC screen graphics.For PC's with graphics only, this sets the two graphics modes as used when displaying charts on the screen. The two parameters specify the mode number to use as the default "hi-resolution" mode, and the "flicker-free" mode used for animations.
-0[o,i,q,X]: Disallow file output, input, exiting, and graphics.This obscure switch is invoked in one of four forms: -0o, -0i, -0q,
or -0X, where more than one of the subswitches may be combined, e.g. -0oiqX to
do all four forms at once. Each subswitch disables a section of the program. The
four areas of file output, file input, program termination, and graphics mode
charts, may be respectively turned off by the four subswitches above. Once a
section is disabled, it is that way permanently and can not be turned back on
until the program quits. Attempting to access a restricted feature will display
an appropriate error message or at least do nothing. This switch was meant to be
used when Astrolog is being run from a chart server, a BBS, as a demo, or
related situation. For example, if one set up Astrolog on the Net to be able to
receive chart requests including arbitrary command lines where the result is
e-mailed back to the user, the administrator probably wants to prevent the
client from using the -o switch to create or potentially overwrite files on the
server, in which case -0o can be put in the
The -; "dash semicolon" switch when encountered causes all the rest of the switches on a command line to be ignored and not processed. This allows the semicolon (usually used by itself without the optional dash prefix of course) to be used to begin comments and for comment lines in the various command files.
Astrolog graphics screen key press options
(version
5.40): |
The most important key, of course. Pressing this will display a help list of all the key presses available in the text screen from which the window was invoked from.
Press 'p' to toggle pause status on or off.Press this to pause all automatic updates to the window or screen. This is mainly used to temporarily freeze any animation (see below) so a particular chart can be looked at without interruption. When animation is on but temporarily paused with this key, the mouse (inactive for the purpose of scribbling during animation) will come active again. Related to this, the number keys which set the rate of animation, but for PC's scroll the chart when not in animation mode, will do the scrolling instead of setting the rate when animation is paused then.
Press 'x' to toggle fg/bg colors on screen.Pressing this will invert the colors on the screen, or in other words will do the same thing as the -Xr switch on the command line.
Press 'm' to toggle color/monochrome display on screen.For color displays, pressing this key will toggle in and out of monochrome mode.
Press 'i' to toggle status of the minor chart modification.Pressing this key will toggle whether or not an alternate form of the present chart should be displayed. See the -Xi switch described earlier for more information on these alternate chart formats.
Press 't' to toggle footer info-data on current chart, onscreen.Pressing the 't' key will toggle whether or not the chart parameters are printed at the bottom of the window or in a sidebar. This corresponds to the -Xt switch mentioned earlier.
Press 'b' to toggle drawing of a border around the chart.This key, when pressed when a graphics chart is being displayed, will toggle whether or not a border is drawn around the graphic. Some charts, such as aspect grids, will always have a border regardless of the state of this flag, while others such as the globes will never have one. Most charts however, such as the wheel charts will look good either way and this key can be used to choose.
Press 'l' to toggle labeling of object points in chart.Press the 'l' key in a window to inhibit the labeling of all planets in the various charts. Instead of drawing the actual little point and then the glyph near it (as well as sometimes a line from the glyph to the dot), just the point is displayed. This mode is mainly useful for the -Z horizon and -S space charts (and has little use for anything else) when in cramped quarters or to get a more realistic view of how the sky actually looks.
Press 'j' to toggle not clearing screen between chart updates.This key toggles on the "jet trails / time exposure" flag which will cause the graphics screen to not be cleared on new chart draws. See the -Xj switch which affects the same setting for more info.
Press 'v' to display current chart positions on text screen.Press this key to dump back to the text screen the list of where all the planets currently being displayed in the window are. This display is the same as produced with the -v switch, and is useful if one wants text to show where everything in the chart is.
Press 'R', 'C', 'u', 'U' to toggle restriction status of minor objects, minor house cusps, uranian planets, and stars.Old text:
Press the 'R' (restrict) key in an Astrolog graphics screen and the
chart will be redrawn with the restriction status of the asteroids and other
minor objects toggled. Pressing the 'C', 'u', and 'U' keys in the window will
toggle the restriction status of the four minor house cusps, the uranian
planets, and the fixed stars, respectively. These keys compliment the 'R' key
option and are the counterparts to the -C, -u, -U, and -RC, -Ru, -RU switches.
(Note that for the 'C', 'u', and 'U' keys, toggling their state off will
automatically restrict all the objects associated with them, while the 'R' key
can simultaneously restrict some and unrestrict other bodies.)
New text:
Of these switches, only 'U' now works, toggling in Fixed Stars in Default Mode.
This key, when pressed when a graphics chart is being displayed, will toggle the state of whether a relationship comparison chart (-r0) is being shown. For example, pressing it when a wheel chart is up will revert to a dual wheel chart showing two sets of planets, while pressing it when an aspect grid is up will revert to a dual aspect grid between the planets of two different charts. When going from a comparison to a single chart, one of the charts will be used while the other thrown away. When going from a single to a comparison, the same chart information will be put in both (which won't be too useful until they are made different through animation or other keypresses).
Press 's', 'h', 'f', 'g', 'z', 'y' to toggle status of sidereal zodiac, heliocentric charts, domal charts, decan charts, vedic format wheel charts, and navamsa charts.Press the 's' key in the window to toggle whether or not the sidereal vs. tropical zodiac is used. Press the 'h' key to toggle to a heliocentric based chart or back again to a geocentric one. Press the 'f' key to toggle the status of whether or not the chart should be modified to correspond to the appropriate domal chart (where the house positions are represented as zodiac positions and vice versa). Press the 'g' key to toggle the status of whether or not the chart should be modified to correspond to a decan chart (where each sign is divided in thirds representing the two other signs in its element). Press the 'z' key to toggle whether wheel charts are displayed in Vedic format. Press the 'y' key to toggle whether charts are displayed in navamsa format or not. These keys of course correspond the -s, -h, -f, -3, -J, and -9 options, respectively.
Press 'O' and 'o' to recall/store a previous chart from memory.Have you ever animated your natal or some other chart to some far distant future or past time, only then to wish you could somehow easily get back in time to the original chart? You can, by pressing the 'O' key in a window, which will recall to the screen previously "saved" chart parameters (which are by default set to whatever you started the window with.) Press the 'o' key to change this default stored chart to be the chart that is presently in the window.
Press 'B' to dump current window contents to root background.Press the 'B' key in an X window to dump whatever is currently being displayed to the background root window. This is basically the corresponding keypress to the -XB option.
Press 'B' to resize chart display to full size of screen.For PC systems, the 'B' key does a different function that the feature shown above. See PC graphics section for its description.
Press 'Q' to resize chart display to a square.One can manually resize the Astrolog X Windows using a window manager (except when a world map or aspect grid is displayed, in which case any resizing will have no effect). Pressing the 'Q' key will automatically resize any (non-world map) window to be a square. This is useful, after resizing charts to approximately the size you want, to make them precise squares. Note that for PC's, this will take EGA and CGA mode pixel ratios into account, in that the horizontal and vertical sizes may be made different in order that the actual display looks square. This will also take into account wheel chart sidebars and only resize the actual visible chart to a square when one is being displayed to prevent distortion.
Press '<' and '>' to decrease/increase the scale size of the glyphs and the size of world map.This two keys will respectively decrease and increase the size of the sign and planet glyphs (as well as resize the astro-graph and aspect grid charts) through the three scale factors available. After resizing the window, you will probably want to use these keys if the glyphs are then too big or small for the new chart.
Press '[' and ']' to decrease/increase tilt in globe display.'[', ']' keys: Not only can the globe display be rotated, but the poles can be tilted down at various angles! (This basically makes the -XP polar globe view option obsolete; it's still in there only for backwards compatibility.) Press the '[' and ']' keys when the globe is being displayed to respectively "pull down" and "push back up" the angle of the polar axis from which the globe is viewed. Combining this with the globe rotation allows one to move any point of the globe to the center of the screen.
Press '+' and '-' to add/subtract a day from current chart.These keys, when pressed when a graphics chart is being displayed, will update the current chart forward or backward one day (actually 1..9 days based on the current animation rate). When animation mode itself is active, these keys will jump by the current animation step, instead of only an amount in days.
Press 'n' to set chart information to current time now.This key, when pressed when a graphics chart is being displayed, will change the current chart (or "outer" chart when a -r0 comparison chart is up) to the current time and place now. This interactively does the same as the -n command line switch. The only other way to revert a graphics chart to the time "now" is to enter animation mode via the 'N' key and then leave it, so this is a shortcut convenience. (This feature is only available when the TIME compile time value is uncommented of course.)
Press 'p' to toggle animation status on or off. Charts will be updated and globe, etc. will rotate by chosen units.Animation! This key will toggle in and out of a mode where the chart
is continually updated in the window. Entering the animation mode
With the text 'T' mode in effect, the chart is basically an advanced
version of xclock, and makes a good window to be left running on your display.
If you are in the -XG globe display mode, pressing the 'p' key will cause the
globe to rotate for an impressive display! Note that when a comparison
relationship chart is up, animation will forward the chart in the "second" slot
rather than the "first". This is more intuitive when animating bi-wheel transit
to natal charts, where the transiting, i.e. second, chart will be the one
forwarded.
These nine keys (i.e. shift plus the number keys from 1..9) enter into a different form of chart animation. Pressing them will cause the current chart being displayed (i.e. it will not revert to the current planet positions) to continually have a delta time added to it and be recast and shown. Pressing '!' will have one second added to the chart for every update (slow action unless you have a very fast system - the animation will be even slower than for the 'N' key). Pressing '@' will have one minute added to the chart each time, which makes for a nice display (note that you will definitely want to be in the text 'T' mode for these animations so you can see what times in the future these charts are being cast for. Pressing '#" will have one hour added each time (note that now the house cusps are starting to move quickly, so you may want to switch to a different system of houses (such as the Equal to keep the Midheaven from flopping back and forth) and/or use -1 to put an object like the sun on the Ascendant.) Pressing '$' will have one day added each time (now you will probably want to start using -R to remove fast moving objects like the moon), and pressing '%' will have one month added for each update of the window. The final keys, shift 6..9 cause years, decades, centuries, and millennia to be added each time, and tend to only be used to look for long range actions (when will Neptune next enter Pisces, etc.) To exit these animation modes, press the 'N' key.
Press 'r' to reverse direction of time-lapse or animation.Press this to reverse the direction of any animation taking place. For the '!'..'(' animation keys above, this will cause negative times to be added to the chart, e.g. pressing '#' then 'r' on a chart cast for noon will cause the next chart to be displayed for 11am, then 10am, etc. For the Globe animation, this will cause the rotation to reverse direction.
Press '1'-'9' to set multiple of animation to '1' to '9', either of degrees rotation, or Jump Factor in Time.The nine number keys are used to set the relative "rate" of animation
to "1" up to "9" whatevers. For example, normally the "@" key means add one minute to the
chart for each update, but press "5" and now we are adding 5 minutes each time.
For the Globe animation, by default the Earth rotates one degree each time;
however, the number keys can speed this up to 9° for each update.
For PC systems only, see the section on PC graphics for this additional feature accessed through the number keys. Note when pressing numbers to set the animation rate or the section of a PC graphics screen to view, the numeric keypad will work for PC's even if numlock isn't on. It would be annoying to press a number on the keypad only to pass some random characters to Astrolog because you forgot to turn on numlock.
Press 'V','A','Z','S','M','K','J','L','E','W','G','P' to switch toThere are basically twelve main modes in which the graphics screen can be in: There are the nine main charts (wheel, aspect grid, local sky, space view, Gauquelin sector, calendar, dispositor, astro-graph, and ephemeris) as well as the three world displays (the simple map by itself, the globe view, and the polar projection). These twelve keys can be used to switch between these modes in the middle of program execution. For example, you can bring up your own chart in a window, then press 'L' to see the astro-graph chart for the same birth data. Then you can press 'W' to just see the world map by itself, and 'G' to see the globe view, after which you can press 'V' to return to your original wheel chart.
Press 'Y' to switch to biorhythm relation chart mode.
The Biorhythm listing and graphic appears only as a two-chart comparison covering a span of time, the difference expressed as sine-waves. It allows to you to compare a natal chart, (chart#2), and a given time, (chart#1), according, potentially, to a three-fold assessment of Physical, Emotional & Intellectual power, - over fourteen days in text mode, - over two fortnights in graphical.
To dismiss this chart, press 'c' to clear one chart, then press 'v' for Standard Wheel.
See 'X' WINDOWS Graphics' Features, seeking '-rb -x', for more.
When graphics are up on the screen, pressing this key acts similar to the mode changing keys above that switch between the different graphic chart types. When pressed, the state of the program being invoked with -Z vs. -Z0, as well as the state of -XW vs. -XW0, and the state of -E vs. -Ey, will be reversed. In other words, if I am viewing the -Z -X horizon chart, and I want to see the -Z0 -X sky graphic, then I press '0' to go to it. Similarly, this key will flip me back and forth between the -XW simple rectangular world map display and the -XW0 Mollewide projection graphic, as well as the -E monthly ephemeris and the -Ey yearly ephemeris. A bit of a hack, but useful, and the only way to change these suboptions while the program is running.
Press 'F' to toggle between world and constellation map modes.This key toggles on the constellation charts where the map and globe modes show the celestial sphere instead of the Earth's continents. See the -XF switch which affects the same setting for complete info.
Press 'F1'..'F12' [plus Shift,Ctrl,Alt] to run macros 1..48.For PC's, pressing the function keys F1 through F12 will execute macros when graphics are being displayed. Pressing F1 through F12 will run macros 1 through 12. Pressing Shift+F1 through Shift+F12 will run macros 13 through 24. Control+F1 through Control+F12 will run macros 25 through 36. Finally Alt+F1 through Alt+F12 will run macros 37 through 48. Executing a macro that hasn't been defined yet (either with a function key or the -M switch) will do nothing.
Press 'space' to force update of current graphics display.When a graphics chart is up on the screen, pressing the space bar will force a redraw of the chart. This is useful for say to cleanup after one has scribbled on it with the mouse button features (described below).
Press 'del' to clear the graphics screen and not redraw.Pressing the delete key when a graphics screen is up will clear the screen, but not redraw the chart right away unless animation mode is on. This is most useful for the -Xj "timed exposure" streaks in horizon and orbit charts if you want to start a new "jet trail" while animating.
Press 'tab' to toggle between graphics resolutions.This feature is only available on PC systems. See PC graphics section for its description. More
Press 'enter' to input a command line of general switches.Pressing the return key when a graphics screen is up will pause and prompt you for a command line. This command line will be processed after which you will be returned back to the graphics state you left, allowing the changing on the fly of any setting that isn't already covered by pressing whatever key, without having to drop all the way back to a -Q loop or out of the program altogether. This can be used to redisplay the -H switch list too. (There are a couple of rare things you can't do in the middle of graphics, e.g. you aren't allowed to suddenly switch to one of the graphics file modes.)
Press 'q' to terminate the window and program.Old text:
Pressing this key will exit the graphic, or terminate the window
(and leave the Astrolog program itself.)
Now, 'q' terminates the program.
************************ DATA ENTRY AND THE MAIN DISPLAY |
Time Zone Name '95 | Abbrev. | Inverted Offset UT | Longit. | Now (2017), Standard Time in... |
Hawaiian Standard Time | HST HT H | +10:30 | 157.5W | |
Central Alaska Time | CAT | +10 | 150 W | Hawaii |
Alaska Hawaii Daylight | AHS | +10 | 150 W | |
Hawaiian Daylight Time | HDT | + 9:30 | 157.5W | |
Alaska Hawaii Daylight | AHD | + 9 | 150 W | |
Yukon Standard Time | YST YT Y | +9 | 135 W | Alaska |
Yukon Daylight Time | YDT | +8 | 135 W | DST Alaska |
Pacific Standard Time | PST PT P | +8 | 120 W | California to Brit. Columbia |
Pacific Daylight Time | PDT | +7 | 120 W | DST Calif. to Brit. Columbia |
Pacific War Time | PWT | +7 | 120 W | |
Mountain Standard Time | MST MT M | +7 | 105 W | Chihuahua to Calgary |
Mountain Daylight Time | MDT | +6 | 105 W | DST Chihuahua to Calgary |
Mountain War Time | MWT | +6 | 105 W | |
Central Standard Time | CST CT C | +6 | 90 W | New Orleans, Winnipeg, Mexico |
Central Daylight Time | CDT | +5 | 90 W | DST New Orleans,Winnipeg, Mx. |
Central War Time | CWT | +5 | 90 W | |
Eastern Standard Time | EST ET E | +5 | 75 W | Tampa to NYC, to Montreal |
Eastern Daylight Time | EDT | +4 | 75 W | DST Tampa, NYC, to Montreal |
Eastern War Time | EWT | +4 | 75 W | |
Atlantic Standard Time | AST AT A | +4 | 60 W | Nova Scotia, NB, Bolivia, Chile |
Atlantic Daylight Time | ADT | +3 | 60 W | DST Nova Scotia, New Bruns. |
Atlantic War Time | AWT | +3 | 60 W | |
Brazil Standard Time | BST BT B | +3 | 45 W | Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay |
Brazil Daylight Time | BDT | +2 | 45 W | DST Brazil, Uruguay |
West Africa Time | WAT | +1 | 15 W | Azores |
Greenwich Mean Time | GMT GT G | 0 | 0 | Iceland, Portugal, UK, |
Western European Time | WET | 0 | 0 | & Ireland, West Africa. |
Central European Time | CET | -1 | 15 E | Europe, Iron Curtain, Magreb |
Eastern European Time | EET | -2 | 30 E | Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, S. Afr |
Russia Zone 3 | UZ3 | -4 | 60 E | Moscow to Azerbaijan |
Russia Zone 4 | UZ4 | -5 | 75 E | Pakistan, Caucasus |
Indian Standard Time | IST, IT, I | - 5:30 | 82.5 E | India |
Russia Zone 5 | UZ5 | -6 | 90 E | Bangla Desh |
North Sumatra Time | NST | -6.30 | 97.5 E | Burma |
South Sumatra Time | SST | -7 | 105 E | Vietnam, Thailand |
China Coast Time | CCT | -8 | 120 E | China, ASEAN, Manila, West Austral. |
Japan Standard Time | JST JT J | -9 | 135 E | Japan, Papua. |
South Australian Time | SAS | -9.30 | 142.5 E | S. & Northern Australia |
Guam Standard Time | GST | -10 | 150 E | Guam, East Austral. |
Russia Zone 1 | UZ1 | -11 | 165 E | Vladivostok |
New Zealand Time | NZT ZT Z | -11:30 | 172.5 E | |
International Date Line | IDL | -12 | 180 E | New Zealand |
Local Mean Time | LMT LT L | Autocalc. | Varies |
************************ FILES, DATA DEFAULTS, AND COMPILE TIME OPTIONS |
************************ DESCRIPTION OF X WINDOW GRAPHICS FEATURES |
Open Chart...: This brings up the standard Windows open file
dialog, allowing one to select a chart info, chart position, or any other
Astrolog command file. This file will be loaded and processed, with the new
chart being displayed in the window. [This does the same as the -i
Open Chart #2...: This also brings up the
Windows open dialog, allowing one to select a chart file, however any chart time
and location settings will be put into the "second" chart slot, as used in
relationship charts. [This does the same as the -r
Save Chart
Positions...: This also brings up the Windows save dialog, however here to
the created file will be written the actual positions of all the planets and
house cusps, and no time or location info. [This does the same as the -o0
Save Chart Text Output...: This allows one to save
the actual text displayed in a window for a text chart to a file as simple text.
[This does the same as the -os
Save Chart
Bitmap...: This saves the current graphics display to a Windows bitmap file.
[This does the same as the -Xb switch.]
Save Chart Picture...:
This saves the current graphics display to a Windows metafile file. [This does
the same as the -XM switch.]
Save Chart PostScript...: This saves
the current graphics display to an encapsulated PostScript file. [This does the
same as the -Xp switch.]
Save Settings...: This allows one to
save settings made within the program so they will automatically be in effect
again the next time the program is run. Without this, one can change settings
such as the house system, aspect orbs, etc, but they will go away upon exiting
the program. The way to make setting changes persistent is to edit the
The default filename to save to will
of course be
Save As Wallpaper: This submenu allows one to
easily set an Astrolog graphics chart to be the background bitmap for the
Windows desktop. There two commands under this submenu are Tile Bitmap and
Center Bitmap. The first centers the Astrolog chart in the middle of the screen,
while the second tiles the chart across and down it. This functionality can be
done without this command, where one can do File - Save Bitmap to create a
bitmap file, then go into the Windows control panel desktop settings, and point
the wallpaper bitmap to the file created; but this command allows it do be done
with a click of the mouse, where a bitmap file called "ASTROLOG.BMP" will
automatically be created and saved in your Windows directory.
Print...: This feature allows one to directly print charts from
within the program. This command brings up the standard Windows Print dialog,
with the same look and feel and options available as when printing from other
Windows programs such as Write. The image printed will be the exact chart that
appears in the window. For graphics charts, the printout will be a one page
image of the display, scaled to be as large as possible within the bounds of the
page. The window's horizontal and vertical scrollbars determine where in the
page the image is situated, e.g. if the vertical scrollbar is all the way to the
top, the image will be at the top of the page, if centered, then it will be
vertically centered, and so on. Note that the colors in the window will be the
colors on the paper, where you probably want to have the Graphics Reverse
Background setting active, so the chart will be black on a white background and
hence not waste ink. For monochrome printers you also probably want to have the
Graphics Monochrome setting active, to prevent colors like yellow coming out as
a hard to see light gray. For text mode charts, the printout will be on a white
background regardless of what's in the window. You may want to turn off the View
Colored Text setting if you don't have a color printer.
The font size may
be affected by the Graphics Character Scale command settings. For the standard
medium character scale on a 8.5"x11" paper, there will be 70 rows to a page. The
text printout will be more than one page if there are more than 70 rows of
output. Note that even with this feature available, one may still want to use
the program's clipboard and file features to print from another program.
Astrolog's Print command makes decisions about layout, font, etc, for you; some
may find this convenient, but others may still prefer to import Astrolog output
into a word processing or desktop publishing program to have full control. The
graphics generated by printing a chart directly, and printing a chart bitmap,
metafile, or PostScript file, have slightly different textures so one may prefer
one format to another. Still, direct printing is available to those of us who
would like to use it.
Print Setup...: This brings up the standard
Windows Print Setup dialog, allowing one to select settings such as the printer
to print to, and whether the printed page will be oriented in portrait or
landscape mode. This dialog is also accessible from the Print dialog itself via
the "Setup..." button, but is also made available separately here.
Exit: This terminates the program. Note that pressing Escape or
Control+C will also quit in addition to this and the command's "q" shortcut key.
Enter Command Line...: This brings up a dialog with one edit
control, in which one may enter a command line. This gives access to obscure
program features that don't have their own menu options yet, as well as easy
access to the command switches for those of us who like them.
Run
Macro (Normal Set): This, along with the next three menu items of "Run Macro
(Shift Set)", "Run Macro (Control Set)", and "Run Macro (Alt Set)", are submenus
each of which contain 12 entries of the form "Macro <1-48>". These run the
appropriate command switch macro. See the -M0 switch for information on how to
define a macro. [This does the same as the -M switch.]
Copy Text
Output: This is like the File Save Chart Text Output command except the text
will be copied to the Windows clipboard. After doing this one can run or switch
to an application such as Notepad, Write, or Word, and use their Edit Paste
command to paste in the chart text, which may then be printed, combined with
other text, and so on. Next to the Print command, this is the easiest way to
print Astrolog charts.
Copy Bitmap: This is like the File Save
Chart Bitmap command except the Windows bitmap will be copied to the clipboard,
which may again be pasted into another application.
Copy Picture:
This is like the File Save Chart Picture command except the Windows metafile
will be copied to the clipboard. Note that when printing to laser printers, the
Picture format is recommended over the Bitmap format because its output is free
of any pixel blockiness.
Copy PostScript: This is like the File
Save Chart PostScript command except the PostScript file will be copied to the
clipboard as simple text.
Show Graphics: This toggles the current chart display between
text and graphics mode. Text charts are drawn in the window as simple text such
as might appear in a DOS box, while graphics charts are pretty high resolution
wheels and the like. [This does the same as the -X switch.]
Buffer
Redraws: This option on the Window Settings submenu toggles whether or not
screen updates are smooth. When off, the screen clears and the chart redraws as
you watch, while when on, the program "pauses" while the update is done behind
the scenes where the new chart is displayed all at once. Animation mode turns
this setting on to provide flicker free updates.
Redraw Screen:
This option on the Window Settings submenu simply redraws the current screen.
Most often this is used to erase any scribbles one may have added with the mouse
buttons.
Clear Screen: This option on the Window Settings submenu
simply erases the screen leaving a blank window, where the next redraw will
bring the chart back. This can be used if one wants to draw on an empty screen.
Hourglass On Redraw: This option on the Window Settings submenu
toggles whether or not the program puts up the hourglass wait cursor while
redrawing a chart. I've found it most natural to have this on normally to know
when the program is busy calculating, but off during animations.
Chart Resizes Window: This option on the Window Settings submenu
toggles whether the window will resize when the chart size increases or
decreases. For example, if displaying a graphic aspect grid which is a square
chart, and one switches to the rectangular shaped astro-graph map chart, this
setting when on, will resize the window to be the new rectangular shape. When
off, the chart will either not fill up the whole window or will overlap its
edges, in which case the scrollbars may be used to view all parts of the
graphic. Note that when the window size changes in this way, the program will
automatically move the window's location appropriately if the new size would
make the window appear partially off the screen edge.
Window Resizes
Chart: This option on the Window Settings submenu toggles whether the chart
will resize whenever the window size is increased or decreased. For example,
when displaying the graphic wheel chart, and one manually resizes the window to
be larger, this setting when on, will make the wheel bigger too so its fills the
new window. [FYI, the X Windows version of Astrolog always behaves as though
this and the above setting are both on.]
Size Chart To Window:
This option on the Window Settings submenu does a one time resize of the chart
to fill the dimensions of the current window. This is only relevant for graphics
charts that don't already have a forced fixed size, and for when the Window
Resizes Chart setting is off.
Size Window To Chart: This option
on the Window Settings submenu does a one time resize of the window to be the
dimensions of the current chart. This is only relevant for graphics charts and
for when the Chart Resizes Window setting is off.
Scroll Page Up,
Scroll Page Down, Scroll to Beginning, Scroll to End: These four commands on
the Window Settings submenu allow one to respectively: scroll the window up as
if one clicked above the thumbnail on the vertical scrollbar, scroll the window
down as if one clicked below the thumbnail on the vertical scrollbar, do the
same thing as if one scrolls to the far upper left, and do the same thing as if
one scrolls to the far bottom right. Note that one will generally want to use
the keyboard shortcuts for these commands (the Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End
keys) rather then select them from the menu, but they're on the menu too just
for convenience.
Colored Text: This toggles whether or not the
characters in text charts are multi-colored. Colored text is recommended on
normally because it looks nice, but should be turned off when copying text
output to the clipboard to remove the control characters which cause the color
changes. [This does the same as the -k switch.]
Set Colors...:
This brings up the Customize Colors dialog. One may use the various combo
controls to change the colors used in graphics and text charts, by selecting a
color from a dropdown, or by entering its name or abbreviation or index from
0-15. The Elements group covers the colors used for the four elements. [This
does the same as the -YkC switch.] The Aspects group covers the colors used for
the 18 aspects. [This does the same as the -YkA switch.] The Standard Color
Palette covers all other uses of color. [The sixteen settings here do the same
as the sixteen settings covered by the -Yk0 and -Yk switches.]
Show
Interpretations: This toggles whether or not interpretations are given for
text charts. [This does the same as the -I switch.]
Print Nearest
Second: This toggles whether or not all zodiac positions are displayed to
the nearest arc second as opposed to just the arc minute. [This does the same as
the "0" part of the -b0 switch.]
Applying Aspects: This toggles
whether or not aspect orbs are displayed in the form of about to happen or just
happened, as opposed to degrees narrow or degrees wide. [This does the same as
the "a" part of the -ga and -aa switches.]
Parallel Aspects: This
toggles whether or not aspects in the "vertical plane" are used, with the
parallel and contraparallel aspects shown as opposed to conjunction and
opposition. [This does the same as the "p" part of the -gp and -ap switches.]
Set Chart Info...: This brings up the generic Chart Info
dialog, which is the place for one to actually create a chart by specifying the
time and location in question. The dialog contains eight main controls, for
month, day, year, time, daylight flag, time zone, longitude, and latitude. These
have dropdowns from which one may optionally choose common values. After this
are two optional text edit controls where one may enter the name and location
for the chart. The special button "Now" will copy the current time over all the
fields. The special button "Previous" will copy the contents of the last chart
cast over the fields. [The eight main combo controls cover the same fields as
the -qb switch. The two text controls cover the same fields as the -zi switch.
The "Now" button does the same as the -n switch. The "Previous" button does the
same as using the "-i set" virtual file.]
Chart For Now: This
sets the current chart information to the current time now. [This does the same
as the -n switch.]
Default Chart Info...: This brings up the
Default Chart Info dialog, where one may specify the default daylight setting,
time zone, longitude, latitude, and the correction factor to add to "now"
charts. These settings are used in commands such as "Chart For Now", where the
time obtained needs to be combined with some location to make a complete chart.
[The five controls in this dialog correspond respectively to the -z0, -z, and
the two parameters passed to the -zl switches (except these switches change the
current chart as well as the default) and the -Yz switch]
Set Chart
#2 Info...: This brings up a dialog identical to the standard Chart Info
dialog, except here the chart settings specified are put into the "second" chart
slot, as used in relationship charts. This command is to "Set Chart Info", as
the "Open Chart #2" command is to "Open Chart". [This does the same as the -i2
switch.]
Charts #3 And #4...: This brings up a dialog giving one
access to all four chart slots, with buttons which will bring up the file open
dialogs to load chart info into each slot, and buttons allowing access to the
chart info dialogs to view or change the info in each slot. This dialog also has
a radio button group to indicate what type of wheel and how many chart rings to
display: a single wheel, bi-wheel, tri-wheel, or quad-wheel. [This covers the
same as the -r3 and -r4 switches, and the -i3 and -i4 switches.]
No
Relationship Chart: This and the remaining eight commands on the Info menu
specify the current relationship chart mode if any, where the currently active
mode has a check mark by it. This first command turns any relationship mode off,
where just a single chart is shown, with any "second" chart ignored. [This does
the same as the -r switch when invoked as _r.]
Comparison Chart:
This sets the relationship chart mode to dual comparison, where two charts are
shown side by side, e.g. the wheel chart becomes a bi-wheel, and aspect grids
are between two sets of planets. [This does the same as the -r0 switch, except
it uses the two charts already in memory as opposed to reading them from file.]
Synastry Chart: This does a synastry chart, a single chart
consisting of the second chart's planets in the first chart's houses. [This does
the same as the -r switch.]
Composite Chart: This does a
composite chart, a single chart consisting of all the midpoints between each
object pair in the two charts. [This does the same as the -rc switch.]
Time / Space Midpoint Chart: This does a midpoint relationship
chart, a single chart cast at the time and location half way between those of
the two charts. [This does the same as the -rm switch.]
Date
Difference Chart: This displays the span of time between the two charts,
given in all units from the nearest second to the nearest year. [This does the
same as the -rd switch.]
Biorhythm Chart: This displays a
biorhythm chart, for a person born at the time in the earlier of the two charts,
for the time in the other chart. [This does the same as the -rb switch.]
Transit And Natal: This sets a mode identical to "Comparison
Chart" above except that the transit restrictions will apply to the second chart
and the natal restrictions to the first, instead of the natal restriction set to
both. [This does the same as the -rt switch.]
Progressed And
Natal: This sets a mode like "Transit And Natal" above, except that the
second chart actually shown (outer ring in wheel charts) will be a chart made by
progressing the first chart to the time in the second. [This does the same as
the -rp switch.]
Sidereal Zodiac: This toggles whether or not the chart is cast
with respect to the sidereal zodiac as opposed to the tropical. [This does the
same as the -s switch.]
Heliocentric: This toggles whether or not
the chart is cast with respect to the Sun for a heliocentric chart, as opposed
to the Earth in a standard geocentric chart. [This does the same as the -h
switch toggling between Sun and Earth centered charts.]
House
System: This submenu allows one to select among fifteen systems of house
division to use. [This does the same as the -c switch.]
Solar
Chart: This option on the House Settings submenu toggles whether or not the
houses are rotated to put the Sun on the Ascendant for a solar chart. [This does
the same as the -1 switch.]
Show Decans: This option on the House
Settings submenu toggles whether or not the planet positions are adjusted to put
each object in the sign corresponding to its decan. [This does the same as the
-3 switch.]
Flip Signs & Houses: This option on the House
Settings submenu toggles whether or not planet and house positions are swapped
with respect to each other for a Domal chart. [This does the same as the -f
switch.]
Geodetic Houses: This option on the House Settings
submenu toggles whether or not house cusps are only computed based on the
chart's longitude for geodetic houses. [This does the same as the -G switch.]
Vedic Wheel Display: This option on the House Settings submenu
toggles whether wheel charts are displayed in Vedic format or not. [This does
the same as the -J switch.]
Show Navamsas: This option on the
House Settings submenu toggles whether or not the planet positions are adjusted
to generate a navamsa chart. [This does the same as the -9 switch.]
Aspect Settings...: This brings up the Aspect Settings dialog,
allowing one to set various things related to each aspect. For each of the 18
aspects, there is:
(1) A checkbox for whether the aspect is to be included in
charts at all,
(2) an edit control specifying the aspect's maximum
orb,
(3) an edit control specifying the aspect's actual angle, and
(4) an
edit control specifying the aspect's relative power for influence
charts.
In addition there are three buttons:
(1) "Restrict All" which
automatically checks all aspects,
(2) "Unrestrict All" which unchecks them
all, and
(3) "Toggle Majors" which inverts the status of the first five
aspects. [The checkboxes are a mixture of the -A and -RA switches. The orb
fields do the same as the -Ao or -YAo switches. The angle fields do the same as
the -Aa switch. The influence fields do the same as the -YjA switch.]
Object Settings... : This brings up the Object Settings dialog,
allowing one to set various things related to each planet. For each of the first
20 objects, there is: (1) an edit control specifying the maximum aspect orb
allowed to that object, e.g. no more than a two degree orb to the North Node,
(2) an edit control specifying an aspect orb addition allowed, e.g. widen all
orbs by one degree for the Sun, and (3) an edit control specifying the object's
relative power for influence charts. [The max orb fields do the same as the -Am
or -YAm switches. The orb addition fields do the same as the -Ad or -YAd
switches. The influence fields do the same as the -Yj switch.]
More
Object Settings...: This brings up a dialog much like the Object Settings
dialog above, except this dialog is for the house cusp and Uranian objects. Like
the standard Object Settings dialog which is for the first 20 objects, this
dialog allows one to set the maximum aspect orb allowed to, the orb addition
factor for aspects concerning, and the power influence value of, each cusp and
Uranian object.
Restrictions...: This brings up the Object
Restrictions dialog, allowing one to specify whether each planet or other object
is included in charts, where each object has a checkbox, with checked meaning
restricted. In addition there are several buttons added for convenience:
(1)
"Restrict All" which automatically checks all objects,
(2) "Unrestrict All"
which unchecks them all,
(3) "Toggle Minors" which inverts the state of the
asteroids and all the other objects in the second set of ten,
(4) "Toggle
Cusps" which inverts the state of the 12 cusp objects,
(5) "Toggle Uran."
which inverts the eight Uranian planets, and
(6) "Copy From Other Restriction
Set" which sets all items to be the state of those in the parallel transit
restriction set. [This dialog does the same as passing values to the -R switch.
The "Restrict All", "Unrestrict All", "Toggle Cusps", and "Toggle Uran." buttons
do the same as the -R0, -R1, -RC and -Ru switches respectively.]
Include Minors: This toggles whether or not the asteroids and
other minor objects are included in charts. [This does the same as the -R switch
when invoked without any parameters.]
Include Cusps: This toggles
whether or not house cusps are included as objects in charts such as aspect
grids and transit searches. [This does the same as the -C switch.]
Include Uranians: This toggles whether or not the Transneptunian
planets are included in charts. [This does the same as the -u switch.]
Include Fixed Stars: This toggles whether or not stars are
included in charts. [This does the same as the -U switch.]
Star
Restrictions...: This brings up the Star Restrictions dialog, which is
similar to the standard Restrictions dialog except it deals with the fixed star
or other deep space objects. Each of the 47 fixed stars has a checkbox, where in
addition there are two buttons: (1) "Restrict All" which automatically checks
all the star objects, and (2) "Unrestrict All" which unchecks them all. [The
"Restrict All" and "Unrestrict All" buttons do the same as the -RU0 and -RU1
switches.]
Transit Restrictions...: This brings up the Transit
Restrictions dialog, which is identical the standard Restrictions dialog in
every way except it sets the status of the objects in the transit restrictions
array, as used in transit charts. The "Copy From Other Restriction Set" button
here copies all flags from the standard restriction set. [The various operations
here do the same as the -RT switch and derivatives.]
Calculation
Settings...: This brings up the Calculation Settings dialog, used to set
various common settings. These include: (1) An edit control to specify the
zodiac degree offset or ayanamsa [same as the parameter passed to the -s
switch]. This control has a dropdown to allow quick selection of several common
systems of sidereal astrology. The values in it are 0.0 for Fagan Bradley,
0.883333 (or 0 degrees 53') for N.C. Lahiri, 0.983333 (or 0 degrees 59') for
Krishnamurti, and 2.333333 (or 2 degrees 20') for B.V. Raman. The other settings
changeable in this dialog are:
Obscure Settings..: This brings up the Obscure Settings
dialog, used to set various uncommon settings. These include:
(1) A checkbox
indicating whether the North Node object is the True Node or the Mean Node [same
as -Yn switch],
(2) a checkbox indicating the date display format [same as
-Yd switch],
(3) a checkbox indicating the time display format [same as -Yt
switch],
(4) a checkbox indicating whether minor or equivalent aspects to
house cusp objects are dropped [same as -YC switch],
(5) a checkbox
indicating whether to leave off the rightmost characters of text chart rows if
they exceed the text columns setting [same as -Y8 switch],
(6) a checkbox
indicating whether to output chart info files in the old non-command switch
format used before version 4.20 [same as -Yo switch],
(7) a checkbox
indicating whether the four angular cusp objects are set to the positions of the
actual house as defined by the current house system [same as -Yc switch],
(8) two checkboxes indicating whether to include sign and direction changes
in transit to transit searches [same as -YR0 switch],
(9) an edit control
specifying the horizontal and vertical number of cells to have in the graphic
aspect grid chart [same as -YXg switch],
(10) a checkbox indicating whether
metafile and PostScript graphics files should use system as opposed to simulated
fonts for glyphs and other characters [same as -YXf switch],
(11) two edit
controls specifying the horizontal and vertical paper size in inches to use in
PostScript charts [same as -YXp0 switch],
(12) a radio button group
indicating how to orient the paper for PostScript charts [same as -YXp
switch],
(13) four radio button pairs allowing one to select between
different glyphs to use for Capricorn, Uranus, Pluto, and Lilith [same as -YXG
switch], and finally
(14) four checkboxes to control whether the events of
rising, zenith transit, setting, and nadir transit appear in the rising and
setting chart [same as -YRZ switch].
Standard List: This sets the current chart displayed to be the
standard default chart, i.e. a standard list of positions in text mode and a
wheel (or bi-wheel in comparison relationship mode) chart in graphics mode.
[This does the same as the -v switch.]
House Wheel: This sets the
current chart displayed to be a house-emphasized wheel chart, i.e. a simple text
wheel chart divided by houses in text mode, and a wheel chart where all the
houses are made to be the same size in graphics mode. [This does the same as the
-w switch.]
Aspect Midpoint Grid: This sets the current chart
displayed to be a grid showing all aspects and all midpoints between each pair
of planets. It will show either aspects or midpoints in comparison relationship
mode. [This does the same as the -g switch.]
Aspect List: This
sets the current display to be a list of all aspects sorted by influence, and is
a text mode only chart. [This does the same as the -a switch.]
Midpoint List: This sets the current display to be a list of all
midpoints sorted by zodiac position, and is a text mode only chart. [This does
the same as the -m switch.]
Local Horizon: This sets the current
display to show all the planets and other objects as they appear relative to the
local horizon or sky, i.e. a list of altitude and azimuth values in text mode,
and a visual coordinate plot in graphics mode. [This does the same as the -Z
switch.]
Solar System Orbit: This sets the current display to
show the orbital positions of all the planets, i.e. a list of the x, y, and z
coordinates of each object relative to the sun (or current central body) in text
mode, and an aerial view of all the planets in their orbits in graphics mode.
[This does the same as the -S switch.]
Gauquelin Sectors: This
sets the current display to show all the planets as situated in the 36 Gauquelin
sectors, along with their plus zone status, i.e. a list of objects and locations
in text mode, and a sector wheel in graphics mode. [This does the same as the -l
switch.]
Calendar: This sets the current display to be a simple
calendar of the month or year surrounding the time of the chart in question.
[This does the same as the -K switch.]
Influence: In text mode,
this sets the current display to be a list of the influence or power of each
planet with respect to its positioning and aspects. In graphics mode, this shows
dispositor graphs of the main planets for their sign and house placements. [This
does the same as the -j switch.]
Astro-Graph: This sets the
current display to be an astro-graph chart, showing where on the world each
planet was rising, on the Midheaven, etc. In text mode this lists the latitude
and longitude of each line at various intervals, and in graphics mode actually
draws and labels each line on a map of the world. [This does the same as the -L
switch.]
Ephemeris: This sets the current display to be an ephemeris
chart, i.e. a list of the zodiac positions of each planet over a range of days
(e.g. the month or year) surrounding the time of the chart in question for text
mode, and a plot of position vs. time for each object in graphics mode. [This
does the same as the -E switch.]
Arabic Parts: This sets the
current display to be a list of the positions of all Arabian part items for the
given time, and is a text mode only chart. [This does the same as the -P
switch.]
Rising And Setting: This sets the current display to be
a list of the times during the day any planet rises, sets, and crosses the
meridian and nadir, and is a text mode only chart. [This does the same as the
-Zd switch.]
Transits...: This brings up the Transits dialog,
used to create various transit lists.
The first thing to do when using this
dialog is to set the type of chart desired in the "transit type " radio button
group. The five choices here are
The second thing to do is to be aware of the "progress instead of transit " checkbox; when checked, all the transit charts will instead be progressed charts, i.e. the transit types will be
Another checkbox named "display returns only ", will when checked
affect the "transit to natal search " chart so that it only shows returns, and
affect the "transit to natal influence " chart so that it only shows aspects
between a transiting planet and the same natal planet [same as the -tr and -Tr
switches]. Now, for the "transit to natal hits " and "transit to natal influence
" charts, you should set the values in the "do transits for " combo control
group (these controls are ignored for the transit to transit charts). There are
controls for "month ", "day ", "year ", and "time " like those in the Chart Info
dialog, which here set the time for the transiting chart (the natal chart
settings should of course be set in Chart Info). Pressing the "Now" button in
the dialog will set these time values to be that of the current moment.
In
addition, for the "transit to transit hits" and "transit to natal hits" charts,
you should select from the "search for hits over" radio button group
appropriately (these controls are ignored for the transit influence charts). In
this group one may choose to scan over a single day, a month, year, or range of
years for aspects, where the time in question is that surrounding the natal
chart set in the Chart Info dialog for "transit to transit hits", and is the
time surrounding that in the "do transits for" group in this dialog for "transit
to natal hits". You should note here that
Progressions..: This brings up the Progressions dialog, which
as its name suggests allows one to do various forms of progressed
charts.
The first thing to do when using this dialog is to set the "do
progression" checkbox appropriately [same as -p switch]. When checked, all
standard charts Astrolog calculates will be progressed; when clear, all
charts will be normal, meaning the rest of the settings in the dialog are
ignored. Assuming this is checked, you then want to set the values in the
"progress chart to" combo control group. There are controls for "month", "day",
"year", and "time" like those in the Chart Info dialog, which here set the time
to progress the natal chart to (the natal chart being of course set in Chart
Info).
Pressing the "Now" button in the dialog will set these time values to
be that of the current moment.
Next, you may set the values in the
"progression settings" control group to define the type of progression to do.
There is a radio button pair which one may use to select between "secondary
progression" or a "solar arc progression" [same as -p0 switch].
Also
there is a "degrees per day" combo control which one may use to set the
progression speed [same as -pd switch]. A number may be typed in, or one of
several common values for this setting may be selected from the dropdown: The
number 365.25 here gives the standard "year for a day" rate, while other values
will do tertiary progressions.
Chart Settings...: The brings up
the Chart Setting Details dialog, which defines various minor settings that go
with and affect the various displays. These include:
Show World Map: This sets the current chart displayed to be a
simple map of the world displayed in rectangular form. [This does the same as
the -XW switch.]
Show Globe: This sets the current display to be
the map of the world shown as the side view of a globe. Note that this chart
looks cool in animation mode because it rotates! [This does the same as the -XG
switch.]
Show Polar Globe: This sets the current display to be
the map of the world shown as the top (or bottom) view of a globe. [This does
the same as the -XP switch.]
Show Constellations: This toggles
whether or not the three map displays above show in them the astronomical
constellations instead of the continents of the world. [This does the same as
the -XF switch.]
Reverse Background: This toggles whether or not
graphics charts are displayed black on a white background as opposed to the
standard white on a black background. [This does the same as the -Xr switch.]
Monochrome: This toggles whether or not graphics charts are
displayed in just black and white monochrome mode as opposed to in the standard
selection of 16 VGA colors. [This does the same as the -Xm switch.]
Show Border: This toggles whether or not graphics charts are
displayed with borders around them. [This does the same as the -Xu switch.]
Show Chart Info: This toggles whether or not graphics displays
have the time and location of the chart in question printed at their base. [This
does the same as the -Xt switch.]
Show Info Sidebar: This toggles
whether or not wheel charts are displayed with an information sidebar to their
right, listing the positions of the houses and objects along with element table
summaries. [This does the same as the -v0 switch.]
Show Glyph
Labels: This toggles whether or not glyphs are drawn for planets and objects
in graphics charts. Pretty much the only time it's useful to ever turn this off
is for the local horizon and orbit charts, especially when doing a timed
exposure animation of them. [This does the same as the -Xl switch.]
Square Screen: This resizes both the graphics chart and the
window to be square shaped, and is useful for charts such as the wheel or globes
if they ever appear oblong and not circular shaped as they should. For wheel
charts with sidebars it will logically make it so just the wheel part becomes
square.
Character Scale: This submenu allows one to set the size
of the glyphs in graphics charts. For text mode charts, this setting will affect
the font size of the characters. There are four options on this menu of "Small",
"Medium", "Large", and "Huge", with medium being the default. There are two more
options on this menu labeled "Decrease" and "Increase", which will move the
setting down or up a notch (if not already at an extreme). [For graphics these
settings correspond to the four percentage values that may be passed to the -Xs
switch.] Important note: I've found that some systems, when changing the size of
characters for text charts, don't seem to be able to load the correct new font;
if you notice characters overlapping each other at small scales and the same
size characters with lots of space between them at large scales, opening up a
DOS prompt seems to fix the problem.
Globe Tilt: This submenu
allows one to change the angle or tilt of the Earth in the globe chart. The
three menu options here are: "Decrease", which pulls the globe down 11.25
degrees or 1/8 of a quadrant; "Increase", which pulls the globe up 11.25
degrees; and "Set to Zero", which returns the globe to the standard zero degree
angle with the equator edge on. [This affects the same setting as the second
optional parameter passed to the -XG switch.]
Modify Display:
This toggles whether or not each graphics chart is displayed in a slightly
modified form, e.g. for the globe display this will plot all the planets at
their zenith locations instead of having just the world map itself. [This does
the same as the -Xi switch; see the documentation for this switch in an earlier
section for a list of how this setting affects each chart.]
Modify
Chart: This option acts as a quick way to toggle several settings associated
with certain charts. Specifically, if in wheel chart mode it will toggle between
the standard wheel and the house-emphasized wheel. In addition, it will toggle
the horizon chart displays with polar center" flag from the Chart Settings
dialog, the "world map in Mollewide projection" flag from the Graphics Settings
dialog, and whether ephemeris and calendar charts are displayed for the year
instead of just the month.
Scribble Color: This submenu allows
one to select the color to use when using the mouse to draw on the window. It
has sixteen options, one for each of the main colors.
Graphics
Settings...: This brings up the Graphics Settings dialog, used to set
various additional settings not already covered by menu options. These
include:
(1) Two edit controls specifying the horizontal and vertical size of
the graphics chart in pixels [same as -Xw switch],
(2) an edit control
specifying the rotation in degrees for the globe and world map charts [same as
the first optional parameter passed to the -XG switch],
(3) an edit control
specifying the angular tilt in degrees for the globe chart [same as the second
optional parameter passed to the -XG switch],
(4) a checkbox indicating
whether to display the world map chart in the oval shaped Mollewide projection
as opposed to just in rectangular form [same as -XW0 switch],
(5) an edit
control specifying the time to delay between doing screen updates when in
animation mode [same as the -WN switch],
(6) a checkbox indicating whether
the graphics screen doesn't automatically update after setting changes or window
expose events, requiring the user to manually force redraws [same as the -Wn
switch], and (7) a radio button group specifying the "wheel chart rotation",
i.e. whether to rotate the entire wheel so an object is at the left edge or at
the top edge of the chart, and an edit control specifying which object to use
when active [all this does the same as the -X1 and -X2
switches].
Stop Animation: This stops any animation in effect, returning
to a static chart. Selecting this when animation is already off will toggle it
on to the "update to now" mode below. [This does the same as the -Xn switch.]
Jump Rate: This submenu allows one to select the type of
animation to do. The first option, "Update To Now", sets it so the chart will be
continuously updated to the current moment, and will act as a glorified
astrological clock. The remaining nine options: "Seconds", "Minutes", "Hours",
"Days", "Months", "Years", "Decades", "Centuries", and "Millennia", set it so
whatever chart will step forward or backward by the specified amount each
update.
Jump Factor: This submenu allows one to select how many
units of whatever time rate the animation proceeds by. The nine options here are
the numbers one through nine, where for example if animation is jumping by
"Minutes" above, selecting "One" will progress the chart by one minute each
update, and selecting "Five" will progress by five minutes each update. This
setting is ignored when animation is set to "update to now" or is off
altogether.
Reverse Direction: This option toggles whether or not
animation will proceed backwards through time as opposed to forwards. This
setting has effect only when animation is on and set to an actual unit, i.e.
it's ignored when set to "update to now".
Pause Animation: This
toggles whether or not any animation is paused. Animation being paused is
basically the same as animation being off altogether, except that it's easy to
unpause to continue animating, without having to respecify the rate settings as
would have to be done were animation really turned off. Note that the pause key
may be used in addition to the "p" key as a keyboard shortcut to this command.
Timed Exposure: This toggles whether or not the screen is erased
between each update. When active, the screen won't be cleared meaning
progressive updates are drawn over the existing display. This is generally only
useful for charts such as the local horizon or solar system (with glyph labels
off) where this effect may be used to create streaks showing the path of objects
across the sky or through their orbits. [This does the same as the -Xj switch.]
Step Forward: This moves the time of the current chart forward
one day, or rather the number of units set in the "Jump Rate" and "Jump Factor"
menus. [This is similar to the -+ switch.]
Step Backward: This
moves the time of the current chart backward one day, or rather the number of
units set in the "Jump Rate" and "Jump Factor" menus. [This is similar to the --
switch.]
Store Chart Info: This copies the time and location of
the current chart being displayed and remembers it in a special buffer. See
below.
Recall Chart Info: This sets the current chart information
to be that in the special buffer above. [This does the same as using the
"-i set" virtual file.]
Help Documentation: This submenu allows one to access and even edit Astrolog's documentation files online without having to leave the program. The six commands on this menu are
These files are viewed simply by having Windows spawn a session of the Windows Notepad program, that has opened the file in question. The Helpfile, due to its size, is opened by the Windows Write/Word program; when Write/Word starts, you will probably want to clock on the "No Conversion" button when asked if you want to convert the file to Write/Word format.
This command will start Internet Explorer or whatever Web browser
your system has set to interpret .URL extension files, and will have that
browser open the file astrolog.url in your astrolog program directory.
List Signs: This sets the current display to be a text
listing of the twelve signs and houses and information about them. [This does
the same as the -HC switch.]
List Objects: This sets the current
display to be a text listing of all the planets and other objects (that aren't
restricted) which Astrolog can compute the positions of, along with information
about their rulerships. [This does the same as the -HO switch.]
List
Aspects: This sets the current display to be a text listing of all eighteen
aspects the program can deal with, and information about them. [This does the
same as the -HA switch.]
List Constellations: This sets the
current display to be a text listing of all 88 astronomical constellations the
program displays in the constellation map charts, and a little information about
each one. [This does the same as the -HF switch.]
List Planet
Info: This sets the current display to be a text listing of the planets in
the solar system, with some astronomical data given about each. [This does the
same as the -HS switch.]
List General Meanings: This sets the
current display to be a text listing of the basic interpretation database used
by the program, giving the general meanings of each sign, house, planet, and
aspect. [This does the same as the -HI switch.]
List Switches:
This sets the current display to be a text listing of the main command switches
that may be passed to the program, with a one line description of each. [This
does the same as the -H switch.]
List Obscure Switches: This sets
the current display to be a text listing of the remaining more obscure command
switches not covered in the list above. [This does the same as the -Y switch.]
List Keystrokes: This sets the current display to be a text
listing of the main shortcut keys ("main" being those that don't require the Alt
key and that exist in the DOS version as well) that one may press to do various
operations. [This does the same as the -HX switch.]
List Credits:
This sets the current display to be a text listing of the credits and copyrights
for the program. [This does the same as the -Hc switch.]
About...: This brings up the About Astrolog dialog which contains
static text also listing the credits and copyrights for the program. [This again
contains the same text that the -Hc switch display prints.]
************************ COMPILING INSTRUCTIONS |
1) Local directoryIf Astrolog doesn't find file, it doesn't attempt to start Wordpad or WEB browser but prints only warning, that it can't find file.
2) Environment directories, set in autoexec.bat, one of them version specific (names of directories as examples, names of environment variables must be strict and in upper-case:
+ a) set ASTR5.41B=C:\aaaaa\541
+ b) set ASTROLOG=d:\abbbb
+ c) set ASTR=H:\miscfile
3) Default directory, compiled in: C:\ASTROLOG
-YUb1 <value> for stars with magnitude below 1.0Colors: ( <value> )
-YUb2 <value> for stars with magnitude between 1.0 and 2.0
-YUb3 <value> for stars with magnitude over 2.0
-YUP <value>These switches are obvious, they sets orbs for automagic restrictions above (for YUP 1 and YUP 2 respectively), default orbs are 1.166666667 deg (1 deg 10'). When you use -YUP <value >, don't worry about switching on/off "alternative stars restriction", it will be automatically reverted back to previous value when you get -YUP 0.
where value:
0 - switch this off
1 - unrestricted are stars, which conjuncts some object (except cusps, POF etc).
2 - unrestricted are stars with PV = 0, 45, 90, etc degrees
3 - unrestricted are both above
-YUO1 <orb1>
-YUO2 <orb2>
Original Astrolog output. You lie faced to zenith, head to
North: - Zenith is just in centre of screen, upper half is nordic hemisphere,
internal circle represents local horizon, external dashed circle represents
"stretched" opposite point Nadir. Planets, which are under horizon, are outside internal circle. Original Astrolog covered sky up to -90 deg in corners of picture and up tp -37 deg latitude in N, E, S and W directions (so area inside 53 deg to nadir in these directions is invisible). |
-YOc <value>set coefficients of temporary decreasing. For example:
and
-YOp <value>
365.25636 (sidereal year)Other more exotic (like Draconic) years/months aren't included.
27.321582 (tropical month)
27.321661 (sidereal month)
29.530588 (synodic month)
=YSa - sets aspects in listings by default as applying-separating.
=YSj - influence text chart shows by default also house's influence.
=YSs - aspect listing shows by default also aspect summary.
-Yq 5 12§ Added alternative date format for some outputs (like events search with -d switch), where abbreviation of month is printed instead of number of month (i.e. "12 Jan 2000" instead of original "12- 1-2000"). That can be switched by new switch:
-Yq 5 blue
-Yq mars 12
-Yq mars blue
************************************** EXPLANATION of POWER CALCULATIONS |
Power calculations in these versions are generally the same as those
in the original Astrolog. The changes are
explained in this text. Additions
are marked with
For each object, find its power based on its PLACEMENT ALONE (positional power). This is also used in aspect-power calculations, instead of the fixed values from original Astrolog.ppower1[i] += rObjInf[i]; { Influence of planet itself. }Planets ruling, exalted, etc. in sign/house gain additions. Additions from houses are divided into two parts - by natural rulership and situational rulership.
ppower1[i] += rHouseInf[inhouse[i]]; { Influence of house it's in. }
In a sign:+= rObjInf[rules] { rules }In house (natural):
+= rObjInf[exalt]; { exalted }
-= rObjInf[i]/3.0 { falls }***
-= rObjInf[i]/4.0 { debilitated }*** += rHouseInf[rules]/2.0 { rules }In house (situative):
+= rHouseInf[exalt]/2.0 { exalt }
-= rObjInf[i]/6.0 { falls }***
-= rObjInf[i]/8.0 { debilitated }*** += rHouseInf[rules]/2.0 { rules }***
+= rHouseInf[exalt]/2.0 { exalt }***
-= rObjInf[i]/6.0 { falls }***
-= rObjInf[i]/8.0 { debilitated }***
The ruler [j] of a sign, where a planet [i] is found, gains an addition. For ruling planets we take into account ruling level (see influence graphics output). Planets in reception have the highest level (same as planets in their own signs), so they automatically have more power.
Main (ruling) planets:ppower1[j] += rObjInf[i]/(5.0*sqrt(Level[j]); { look for level }***
Other objects (as rulers they have low initial power, so these additions are small too):ppower1[j] += rObjInf[i]/5.0;
Analogous additions are given to rulers of signs where an object is. But here additions are divided - 1/2 to the natural ruler, and 1/2 to the situational ruler.
Natural Ruler:
Main planets:ppower1[j] += rObjInf[i]/(10.0*sqrt(Level[j]) { look for level }***
Other objects:ppower1[j] += rObjInf[i]/10.0;***
Exactly the same for Situational Ruler:
Main planets:ppower1[j] += rObjInf[i]/(10.0*sqrt(Level[j]) { look for level }***
Other objects:ppower1[j] += rObjInf[i]/10.0;***
House cusps give an addition to sign rulers (cusps here are objects!)
Main planets: += rHouseInf[i]/2.0
Now, when all position powers are calculated, we give an addition to house cusps (as objects), if there is something in that house.
House cusps: += ppower1[i]/10.0***
For each object, find its power based on ASPECTS it makes. This version starts with the power of aspects rAspInf[k]; also orbs for aspects, and objects can have orb additions or limitations.
So, if an object [j] has an aspect [k] with object [i], to [j] is given additional aspect power:
power2[j] += rAspInf[k]*(sqrt)(power1[i]*power1[j])*0.5****
(1.0-RAbs((real)l)/60.0/GetOrb(i,j,k));
That means if an aspect is exact its power is maximal, and decreases linearly to zero, when the real orb exceeds the given orb for the current aspect.
Differences with original Astrolog: 1. Instead of planet power fixed in rObjInf[i], position powers are used, as calculated previously. So more powerful planets (by position) have more powerful aspects. 2. Instead of arithmetic mean--(power[i]+power[j])/2.0, the geometrical mean-- sqrt(power[i]*power[j]) is used. This is because, if power1[i] or power1[j] is zero, in the second case the power of an aspect also is zero. In the first case (original Astrolog) this isn't so. 3. In the case of "Smart Cusps" (see helpfile.540), both opposite unrestricted cusps have additions (but planets in this case gain an addition only from one cusp). |
Added are analogous calculations for PARALLEL-CONTRAPARALLEL aspects, where orbs are temporariliy decreased 6 times (to about 1 deg) and powers of aspects 4 times. These are default values and both can be independently set in theastrolog.dat /astrolog32.dat file (i.e. one can for example decrease orbs 6 times, without changing a parallel's power).
Changes 1. and 2. are used also in aspect power calculations with switch -a (-a0).
powers of planets, placed in sign:
power_of_sign[i] += power[j]; { Powers of real objects in sign }
or power of other objects in sign:
power_of_sign[i] += power[j]/3.0; { Powers of other objects in sign }
Note: that in the -Yj 21 32 <value1> <value2> .... ..are initial powers of house cusps as objects (so there are initial powers for Asc, Desc, IC, MC, etc.), visible on the wheel... The second set is determined with the switch -YjC 1 12 <value1> <value2> .... ..these powers are used in planetary power calculations (as an addition to a planet's power if the planet is placed in a respective house). Also these are the initial powers of the houses, as used above. |
*************************************** ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATIONS, by Valentin Abramov, 05/2/1999. |
Note: that all files must be filled by user him- or her-self, - I don't give any ready-to-use interpretations. That is big work. I'm used this interpretation over two years, and I must say, that my database isn't filled yet :) That's reason, why I don't believe that this interpretation-way will find a lot of users, but it can be interesting anyway. Also without any interpretation database file this interpretation part gives info about chart in another form than the standard astrolog outputs and can be useful. |
-Ia = Print out all info, described above, without interpretation part. That is actually a way to regroup chart info by planets and houses. Included are also positions of house dispositors (same in both cases natal and transit-natal).
-Ib = Interpretation. Print out all described above, excluding dispositor info (if there exist files and reference codes, - see below). This switch is same as in version 5.30c.-Ip , - Like-Ib , but covers only planets part.
-Ih , - Like-Ib , but covers only house part.-Id , - Like-Ih , but included info of dispositors.-Io , ~ Included is all possible interpretation info.
01 - conjunction
02 - opposition
03 - square
04 - trine
05 - sextile
06 - Inconj.
07 - SemiSxt.
08 -SemiSquare
09 - Sesquiqua.
10 - Quintile
11 - BiQuint.
12 - SemiQuint.
13 - Septile
14 -Novile
15 - BiNovile
16 - BiSeptile
17 - TriSeptile
18 - QuadriNov.
INSTRUCTIONS TO CUSTOMIZE THE THREE PERSONAL CHARTS:-----------------------------------------------------------
Locate the folder:C:\Astrolog\Astrolog32\miscellaneous\MACRO\CARTE
Here are three files:1.dat ,2.dat and3.dat
Replace1.dat and2.dat with your choices, but rename again1.dat ,2.dat and3.dat
Select the Macro for one planet.-----------------------------------------------------------
~ Double charts (transits) and animations are allowed.
To end, run the macro: -> BACK TO Chart#1 or HERE-NOW.
Select the Macro for one planet.-----------------------------------------------------------
~ Double charts (transits) and animations are allowed.
To end, run the macro: -> BACK TO Chart#1 or HERE-NOW.
Select the Macro for the chosen predictive technique. The today-related Progression-Direction single chart will be activated.-----------------------------------------------------------
To end, run the macro: -> BACK TO Chart#1 or HERE-NOW to go back to HERE & NOW.
The command "Charts\Progressed And Natal" can be used for the double charts (according to the date of #Chart2).
~ Animations are allowed.
For the Age harmonic charts a preliminary computation is necessary: H = Years with 6 decimal figures between the today date and the birth date.
~ For them no animation is allowed.
To end, run the macro: -> BACK TO Chart#1 or HERE-NOW to go back to HERE & NOW.
The instructions are shown in the menu itself.6th MENU - Macros 101-120: 2nd part- ASTRONOMICAL DATA - Self-explanatory.
To end, after any interpretation is used, the Macro -> INTERPRETATIONS OFF is necessary.
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