The Astrology Book

automatically updates when the positions change), ephemeris printing, harmonic charts, and

some graphical tables. They all offer the ability to set default colors, house system, zodiac, pre-

sent location, ayanamsha, true or mean node, a customer’s logo, and preferred wheel style.

They all run under Microsoft Windows.

Solar Fire 5.This program (by Esoteric Technologies, Inc., and distributed by Astrolabe)

is perhaps the best-designed for ease of use and the most polished astrology program on the

market. It is solid (never crashes), includes the most comprehensive manual, an excellent page

designer, easiest and most flexible customizing features (e.g., the ability to create any number

of aspect sets), and a huge range of functions. No other program allows you to set different orbs

for applying and separating aspects (both in natal chart and for transits, progressions, etc.)

Perhaps its foremost strength is its incredible interactivity. While looking at a chart

wheel, you can change the aspect set, type of wheel or page, points displayed, birth time, etc.,

and immediately see the changes. Another incomparable feature is its Time Map transit/pro-

gressed graph. The Time Map shows each predictive event on one line for a period from one

day to any number of years, with the entering, exact, and leaving orb dates for each event. In

addition to including standard predictive techniques, the Time Map (and transit list) can

include eclipses, transits/progressions/directions to and from sensitive points such as mid-

points, fixed stars, and many, many asteroids, and to house cusps (not just ingresses), Arabic

parts, fixed zodiacal positions, and nodes of any planet or major asteroid. You can also merge

separate searches into one listing or Time Map.

Solar Fire also offers the best chart animator, which allows you to view one (or more)

biwheels with transiting/progressed/directed planets moving around a chart at any rate you

specify with aspect lines forming over time, plus the ability to see up to four wheels or biwheels

at once, triwheels or quadwheels or any page of charts, dials, tables, and graphs. Solar Fire

includes many pages, including ones for cosmobiology, Vedic, horary, fixed stars, and classical

(ancient Western) techniques.

You can record any set of jobs using the program’s unique Astrologer’s Assistant, and

then recreate all of the printouts (charts, graphs, maps, etc.) for a new person with the push of

a button. The Eclipse search finds eclipses for a range of 5,000 years, with detailed information

on each eclipse. Chart files can be exported in many formats including the Quick*Chart for-

mat (for importing into most astrology programs) and can be backed up effortlessly. Solar Fire

5 also includes astro-mapping, an Arabian parts editor, fixed star interpretations, an extensive

well-written synastry report, a wonderfully useful graphic ephemeris, and an advanced

ephemeris generator that can include Arabic parts, asteroids, transiting midpoints, hypotheti-

cal planets, and the ascendant and M.C.

Finally, Solar Fire offers additional advanced features like MultiWheel Superimposition,

which allows you to see bi-, tri-, and quad-wheels with each of the charts having their own

ascendant, or with all of the charts aligned to any point (e.g., align all of the Suns). It also has

an Extra Points wheel, where you can place any set of extra points within a birth chart. You

can create any number of sets of extra points, and choose any midpoints, lunations, eclipses,

THEASTROLOGYBOOK [863]

Appendix D: Astrological Software

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