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Frequently Asked Questions - Solar Fire
Solar Fire Questions
Solar Maps Questions
Solar Spark Questions
JigSaw Questions
Solar Writer Questions
Astracadabra Questions
The Imperial Astrologer Questions
Solar Fire Answers |
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Thank you for contacting us regarding the use of interpretations text in Solar Fire and Solar Writer. This text has been provided for personal and professional use within these astrology software programs. As such you may use the text for your friends, family and clients as long as you are using the software to generate each report. You cannot, for instance, take the text and use it from another programs or directly on a web site. This would be breach of use. You may edit the text, as long as you keep the copyright notice. You may also remove the supplied illustrations and use your own within the software. In fact we hope that you will customise your reports in a way that reflect your own style. Our aim is to support your astrology work and provide you with a wonderful tool for your satisfaction.
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Can Solar Fire display and print European characters, like ä? |
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For displaying and printing European characters in Solar Fire Gold (any version really), the user will need to change the font setting in Solar Fire Gold. On the menu Chart Options > Fonts, the defaults are "ET Sans Serif 2" and "ET Symbol 2" for Screen and Printer fonts respectively. It is best to change these fonts to "MS Sans Serif" and "Arial" (for Screen and Print fonts) so that any European characters, entered by the user, in a Name or Place may easily be displayed and/or printed.
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For anyone who is curious we have Solar Fire and Windows running on a Macbook laptop here using Bootcamp and it works great. There are also a couple of other options besides Bootcamp that I mention below. Bootcamp is included on new intel OS-X macs and there are installation instructions in the macintosh help, search for bootcamp in the help, or look here, It's easy in fact to make a windows partition and you can change your mind later and easily take windows off again in a couple of minutes. Windows on Bootcamp runs as fast or faster than a regular PC. The only issue is that you will probably want a mouse with two buttons on it. Here is a link to a free program that will allow you to right click with the apple mouse using the option (control) key, On the windows keyboard there is a delete key and a backspace key and they do different things, but the delete key on the Mac keyboard acts like a backspace key only. I recommend you get some keyboard hot key program and reprogram the right hand command key to be a windows delete key, here's the free software called Keytweak that I used, In addition to Bootcamp there's also software called 'Parallels' that lets you run windows inside of a window on the Mac desktop. Some of our customers use this. This is also fast from what I hear. If you use parallels the only proviso is don't enable 'shared files' or Solar Fire Gold won't be able to find it's user files. There's also a free emulation software sponsored by Sun Microsystems called 'Virtual Box' that is fairly fast and lets you set up windows inside of a file on your hard disk so you can run windows on the mac desktop. I have tried this and it works pretty well.
This is a little harder to set up than parallels probably, but not really hard. All of these windows options isolate the windows environment from the Mac environment so viruses can't jump from one side to the other side. All of these also require that you have a Windows disk and a license key (serial number) that you are not currently using somewhere else. An old disk from an old derelict computer should work. Solar Fire will work on any windows from windows 98SE onwards so you can use an old version of windows with Virtual Box or Parallels. The Virtual Box emulator I mentioned above wants XP or Vista it will work with older windows but doesn't have drivers for hi res video.
I used this video driver to load Windows ME and Solar Fire on Virtual Box With Bootcamp you need a full version of windows XP or Vista. If you have an upgrade version you can't eject the CD while windows is installing to insert the older windows CD like it asks you to. However if you have an external CD you can insert both CD's at the same time and it will work. Put the older windows disk in the external CD drive and just press enter when the windows install asks you to insert the old cd. By the way, Bootcamp will make a windows partition and format it for you, but you still have to let the windows install program format it again or it won't install properly. If you don't use windows much then let it make the default small sized Fat32 partition (which OS-X can also use). But if you use windows a lot you might want to make a bigger partition and let windows format it with ntfs. Happy Computing
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The current release of Solar Fire Gold (v7.0.7) is fully compatible with Windows Vista, and all the latest versions of Esoteric Technologies' programs can be installed and run on Windows Vista.
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We have had several requests to be able to view Pholus and Nessus on a wheel as well as seeing aspects to them in the Reports > Asteroids report.
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Your Solar Fire Deluxe can certainly help you with draconic charts, and save you a lot of time. Here are the steps you need to run a draconic chart using Solar Fire Deluxe: i) Enter a new chart or open an existing chart of a person so that the chart is listed on the Calculated Charts List. This chart will be your "normal" chart - one that you are already familiar with in tropical or western astrology. ii) With the Calculated Charts List displaying, right-click on this chart entry (it is likely to be highlighted) to display a menu then click on the "Edit" item then click on the "Copy & Edit Chart..." item. This action will display a New Chart Data Entry screen ready for editing. iii) You will see the details for the person already entered so all you need to do is to change the Zodiac setting. You do this by clicking on the down arrow next to the Zodiac that is currently displaying (likely to be Tropical). Scroll down this list of zodiacs until you locate "Draconic" and click on it to select it. iv) Click on the "OK" button and this new chart with the Draconic zodiac will be placed on the Calculated Charts List. As you will see from the Preview wheel, the Moon's North Node is set to 0* Aries - the beginning of the draconic zodiac. v) From here you can simply double-click on that new entry on the Calculated Charts List and this action will display this chart in a single wheel on your Solar Fire Deluxe's default page layout. vi) Pamela A. F. Crane's "Draconic Astrology" book displays both the "normal" tropical chart and the draconic chart around a zodiac wheel, the "normal" on the inside and the draconic one on the outside. You can do this too with Solar Fire Deluxe. To do this, get back to the Calculated Charts List then highlight both your "normal" chart and your draconic chart by first holding down the "Ctrl" key on the keyboard and then click on each of these two charts to highlight them. Now release the "Ctrl" key. vii) Click on the "View" menu item on the menu bar at the top of that screen then click on the "BiWheel..." option to display the two charts. NOTE: if your "normal" chart is not the inside one then simply click on the "Swap" button to make it so. viii) Finally, we need to select a BiWheel layout that displays both charts around a zodiac wheel. To do this, click on the "Wheel Style" button and you will see a list of possible BiWheel options. Click on the TRANSITS2.WH2 entry then click on the "Select" button. This action will now display the two charts in a somewhat similar fashion to the charts shown in Pamela Crane's book. Neville Lang Technical Support.
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14/09/05 How do I copy my Solar Fire Deluxe charts and pages to my publishing program? |
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To achieve sending a Solar Fire Deluxe chart image from the Clipboard to the Microsoft Publisher, follow these steps: i) Within Solar Fire, get up to the point where you are displaying your required chart on the "View Chart" screen, using your required page layout ii) On that screen, click on the "Copy/Send" button then click on the "Clipboard" Destination then click on the "Metafile (*.wmf)" Output File Type then click on the "OK" button. This action copies this page layout to the Clipboard in Metafile format. iii) Start up your Microsoft Publisher program and get to a blank page. If the page layout you selected in Solar Fire Deluxe was in a landscape format then click on File -> Page Setup menu items, click on the "Landscape" option then click on the "OK" button. iv) I would now set your page layout guides. Click on Arrange -> Layout Guides menu items and set the Left, Right, Top, Bottom margins to 1cm and click on the "OK" button v) With the image still in the Clipboard, click on the Edit -> Paste menu items and your Solar Fire chart image will be put onto the page in a smaller frame vi) Hold down the "Ctrl" key on the keyboard then, using the mouse, grab one of the corner anchors of the image and re-size the image to fill the page. vii) Finally, you can click on the File -> Save As menu items to save that publication or click on File -> Print menu items to print it out. NOTE: The "Metafile (*.wmf)" setting in Solar Fire Deluxe yields a much better image quality for than the "Bitmap (*.bmp)" setting. Neville Lang Technical Support.
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I am a little lost with the additional patterns or grand configs in a chart. Where might I find some definitions about some of these patterns, such as the Huber learning 1, 2, 3, 4 , or the Double Yod key, etc. ? | |
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Solar Fire includes all the major patterns to which we had found references in astrological literature. Note that, due to lack of any single authoritative reference to aspect patterns, many patterns have been attributed with more than one name, and we have therefore included all the alternative names known to us.
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09/08/05 I wonder if anyone could point me in the direction of how to erect a tertiary chart using Solar Fire? | |
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You can calculate tertiary progressed charts for a given date and time, or find hits to a natal charts over any given period of time, using tertiary progressions. To calculate a tertiary progressed chart
To calculate a dynamic report using tertiary progressions
Graham Dawson, Technical Director
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29/10/02 I purchased a copy of Solar Fire v5 a couple of years ago and I was wondering if you know how I can use SFv5 on my computer with Japanese Windows. I now have Windows XP - Nathan |
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The astrological font used in Solar Fire v5 does not display correctly on Japanese Windows. This problem also affects all other Eastern language Windows that use "Double Byte Character Set" i.e. those languages which have large character sets. From a technical perspective, the problem is caused by a deficiency in the programming language used for Solar Fire v5 (Microsoft's Visual Basic v5), and unfortunately there is no straightforward way for us to remedy this. A glimmer of hope that we have recently discovered is that if you have the Japanese version of Windows XP, then you may have the option of switching it to English language within the Regional Language settings, and when you do so Solar Fire should work correctly - Graham Dawson, Co-Author
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I now have an Imac (apple mac) and would still like to use Solar Fire. How can I do that? - Maureen McKenna |
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Thank you for your enquiry about our Solar Fire astrology software. Solar Fire has been developed for PCs only. A selected number of our customers are successfully operating Solar Fire on Power Macs using either Softwindows or Virtual PC, however, this is something that they do of their own volition. We cannot guarantee technical support, although we will do all that is within our power to assist in any problems. If you do wish to test Solar Fire on your own Mac, we suggest that you contact us for a demonstration program or download a demonstration program from our website at www.esotech.com.au If you do go ahead with your purchase of Solar Fire then we would certainly be interested in to hear how successful you have been. We would also be interested in any feedback on how you fare with the demonstration program. - Stephanie Johnson, Co-Author.
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7/03/02 Does anyone have a list of birth data for the Aussie cities - Sydney, Canberra etc? - R. W. Finn |
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The Austalian Data Collection has the following details for the City of Sydney, time unknown: City of Sydney - Event Chart 20 Jul 1842 NS, 12:00 pm, -10:04:52 Sydney Australia, 33°S52', 151°E13' Geocentric Tropical Zodiac Rating: X Comments: Event Chart This chart represents the time that Sydney was declared a city at the Municiple Council meeting. The time represents the beginning of the meeting. Data Source: Astrologer Marie Casey, "The Astrological Monthly Review" magazine April 1995, Page 31. Reference - Data: Australian Astrologer Miriam Laister RR:X If anyone has any other details please feel free to share them. - Stephanie Johnson, Editor, Australian Data Collection
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26/02/02 Do we have Governor General Hollingsworth's birthday? |
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We have had several requests for the birth data of the current Governor-General Dr Peter Hollingworth. We did find his date and place of birth, but not the time. I have sent an email to his office, but am not optimistic of a response because of the current controversy, the visit of the Queen of England and the Governor-General's religious beliefs. The following birth details may be of some help: Peter Hollingworth - 10 Apr 1935, 12:00 pm, ACST -9:30 Adelaide SA, 34°S55', 138°E35' Geocentric Tropical Zodiac Rating: X (Time Unknown) Comments: Religion/Governor General Born in Adelaide, Peter Hollingworth's family moved to East Malvern in Victoria in 1941 where he attended the Lloyd Street and Murrumbeena State Schools, before going to Scotch College and then taking on a commercial cadetship with BHP. During his National Service in 1953, Peter was drafted to the Padre's Office as secretary and found his vocation to the priesthood. He graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1960 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Licentiate of Theology, having resided at Trinity College. In the same year he was ordained in the Anglican Church. He also married his wife, Ann, in 1960. After completing his studies, Peter became Deacon-in-Charge and then Priest-in-Charge of St Mary's, North Melbourne as part of an innovative inner city team ministry. Four years later, he was appointed as Chaplain to the Brotherhood of St Laurence, completed a Master of Arts Degree in Social Work at Melbourne University and wrote several books based on his experiences working with the poor and disadvantaged. In 1990 he became Archbishop of Brisbane. Dr Peter Hollingworth was sworn in as Australia's 23rd Governor-General on 29 June 2001. Upon being sworn in, he became the Chancellor and Principal Companion of the Order of Australia. In February 2002, media attention turned the spotlight on his role as Governor-General as reports came to light of him ignoring sexual abuse and harassment within his Brisbane diocese during his time as Archbishop of Brisbane. Pressure is currently mounting for his resignation. His wife, Ann, was born Kathleen Ann Turner on 19 May 1936 in Brighton, Melbourne. Data Source: Official Governor-General website (22/2/02) - Stephanie Johnson, Editor, Australian Data Collection.
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18/02/02 I have seen two values for the solar year ie 365.2422 days and 365.2563 days. Why are there two different values? - Ron Day |
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One value (the lesser one) is the average solar tropical year - this is the time taken for the Sun to return to the same position in the precessing tropical zodiac. The other value (the larger one) is the average solar sidereal year - this is the time taken for the sun to return to the same position relative to the stars. Graham Dawson Co-Author
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Recently we have received many queries regarding the compatibility of Solar Fire version 5 and Windows XP. The answer, from our technical department, is that Solar Fire version 5 has been tested on Windows XP with no known problems. This is also true for Solar Fire version 4 and the Solar Fire - Standard Edition. Solar Fire version 5 is compatible with Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, NT4 (SP3+), 2000 and XP. Please note that you need to have a version later than v5.0.11. to ensure up-to-date compatibility with the latest Windows software. Windows NT4 (prior to Service Pack 3 - SP3) requires installation of special font files, which can be supplied on request with the program. Our Australian and New Zealand customers can contact us at support@esotech.com.au if you have further queries or need help on this subject. Stephanie Johnson Co-author
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17/02/02 How do I add to ACS PC ATLAS other places (I mean to add to the existing database, not to create new one) - Zdenek Bohuslav |
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You cannot add places the the ACS Atlas from within Solar Fire, but you CAN add your own places to the ACS Atlas by using the Atlas program that is installed with the atlas itself. This program us called ACSATLAS.EXE, and you can find it in the ACS atlas folder (usually called ATLAS or PCATLAS). When you run this, you will see that there are menu options to add or delete places. The help file for this program contains more information if you need it. Graham Dawson Co-Author
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17/02/02 The second and other pages of the Solar Fire dynamic report are not supported local codes of letters in chart names. Why is that? - Zdenek Bohuslav |
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The dynamic report is created using a font which contains astrological glyphs instead of accented European language characters. Therefore, if you generate a report which includes a chart name with accented characters, those accented characters will probably appear as spurious astrological glyphs instead. This is a limitation of Solar Fire's design, the only solution to which would be to enter chart names without any accented characters. However, the Solar Fire team has noted this European language issue issue for future review. Graham Dawson Co-Author
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17/02/02 How do I combine two charts in a one biwheel type, where inner would be European type chart, outer is french type chart ( yo have houses in inner chart, and houses of outer chart are as the "beams") - it is graphicaly more easier to read comparision of both together? - Zdenek Bohuslav |
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I assume that you are wanting to display a bi-wheel where the two charts are aligned by their houses instead of the more common anglo convention of aligning the chart's zodiacs. The simplest way to do this in Solar Fire is to choose the wheel style for bi-wheels called "BIZOD.WH2". Then you must choose the Chart Options / Multiwheel Superimposition menu option, and select "By exact position of selected points" and set Base Point to Ascendant and Superimposition point to Ascendant. This will align the two charts by their ascendants, which is equivalent to rotating the outer chart until its houses match those of the inner chart. Also note that you can use Solar Fire's wheel designer to modify or create your own bi-wheel design according to European and/or French style preferences as you wish. This may require a little more expertise than a beginner might possess, but the Solar Fire team would be happy to help design your wheel if you can send a sample (preferably as a computer graphic) of what you are trying to achieve. Graham Dawson Co-Author
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17/02/02 How do I define the same degree orientation of the charts in the pages with more than one chart on the page (for multiply comparision I need to have for example for all charts on page on the left hand all 0 Aries, or all charts positioned with 19 Cancer for exasmple , or all Asc on left - all on my choice) - Zdenek Bohuslav |
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Solar Fire's wheel designer allows you to specify a fixed anchor angle within a particular wheel style design file. Therefore, you could design a wheel style that anchors 0 Aries on the left, and then use that wheel style for all your displayed charts. Similarly you could design a style that anchors at 19 Cancer. However, it is not possible to alter the anchor position part from by selecting a specially pre-designed wheel style, so you cannot easily select an arbitrary degree and quickly align all the chart to that degree. Graham Dawson Co-Author
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8/11/01 When an eclipse chart is produced in Solar Fire I note that the Sun and Moon are not at the very same minute of arc. For example, if I was to select the eclipse chart for 21 Jun 2001, 10.04pm (Melbourne) then the Sun and Moon are 3 minutes apart. Why is that? |
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For a solar eclipse, the exact time of maximum Solar eclipse varies by location. This is because it occurs with a conjunction of the topocentric (ie. parallax corrected) moon with the sun, rather than the geocentric moon with the sun. If you want to find the time of maximum eclipse for a specific location, then you need to cast a chart which has the parallax corrected moon exactly conjunct the sun for that location. However, a generalised (global) eclipse chart can also be done for the time of maximum (global) eclipse, and this is what Solar Fire does. However, this chart is not necessarily the time of exact conjunction of the geocentric moon and sun by longitude alone, but it would be very close to the time of nearest conjunction in longitude and latitude together.
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8/11/01 Have you ever thought of leaving a space at the bottom of the "View Chart" screen in SF5? When I am writing and have to continually flit back and forth between SF and my word processor, it would be much quicker if I could access the bar at the bottom of the screen to click back into my other programs. Would that be very hard to do? |
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There is no easy way to alter Solar Fire's behaviour in this regard. However, there is a good shortcut in Windows which allows you to switch applications easily without using the taskbar: hold down the Alt key, and then press the Tab key. This will pop up a list of open applications, and pressing Tab again allows you to move through the list and choose an application to switch to. I find that once you get the hang of this, it is actually easier than using the taskbar.
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8/11/01 Can a logo be added to the objects list of the page editor or is there any other way that a logo can be added to the printouts of Solarfire 5? |
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Yes, it is possible to add a logo as a graphic to a page design, both for viewing on the screen and as a print-out. In SFv4 this may be any file of type *.bmp, *.wmf. In SFv5 it may also be *.jpg, *.ico, *.gif, *.emf. In Solar Fire v4 the graphic has to be first copied into the Solar Fire directory. However, in SF5 the graphic can be selected from any location on the computer. The process is: Edit Page Insert New Object Choose Graphical/Graphic from the list and Insert (and move and size as required) Highlight Graphic File in the white dialog box Click on the arrow at the top of the list Choose your graphic from a file with the Select Graphic File box.
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8/11/01 This is just a quick query and I am sure I should know this or at least know where to look it up: On a chart for 6 1 1572 "OS" comes up next to the date. On a chart for 5 1 1893 "NS" comes up. What does OS and NS stand for? |
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NS = New Style Calendar = Gregorian Calendar OS = Old Style Calendar = Julian Calendar The best place to get a full description of the calendar types is in the manual or online help file (eg. look in the index under "Dates / entering" and see the section titled "Modern and Old Calendars").
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8/11/01 I am having problems with my Solar Fire v3 Aries and Taurus glyphs. Help please? |
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If you are asking this question then it is likely that you have recently upgraded your version of Windows. Solar Fire version 3 was replaced by Solar Fire version 4 in May 1997, and then again by Solar Fire version 5 in March 2000. Version 3 has not been sold since May 1997. Since then, Microsoft has released new versions of Windows and you will note problems with the Aries and Taurus glyph when using Windows 98 and Windows 2000. This problem does not occur on earlier versions of Windows. Your options are to either revert to your earlier version of Windows or to upgrade your version of Solar Fire. The cost of upgrading from Version 3 to Version 4 is $75 including GST. The cost of upgrading from Version 3 to Version 5 is $155 including GST. Please contact us if you have any queries about this.
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Yes, you can use Solar Fire and all other Esoteric Technologies' products on both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 and Windows NT. Windows NT requires a special version of certain files - please check with your agent.
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8/11/01 The city of Adelaide always appears at the top of the main screen in Solar Fire. How do I change the place details to my own choice? |
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When Solar Fire is first installed, the city of Adelaide automatically appears on the main screen, and also in the new chart screen. To change this, choose "New" from the "Chart" menu on the main screen. First, type in the place of your choice, the longitude, latitude and the time zone details. You'll see a small box titled "Default Place". Click on the "Save" button in this box. From now on your chosen place will appear each time you open the new chart screen, and also on the main screen.
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8/11/01 Why do some aspects appear to be missing from my wheel or aspect grid in Solar Fire v3? |
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It is possible that some aspects will appear to be missing from your aspect grid, and your aspect reports, if you have accidentally switched on the 3-D aspects option. This is more likely to happen in Solar Fire v3. Changes have been made in V4 to help users avoid this problem. To check this problem further, first choose "Chart Options" from the main screen. On the menu you'll see an item entitled "3-D Aspects". If it is checked with a tick mark, click on it to switch it off. If you leave the "3-D Aspects" option switched on, when Solar Fire calculates aspects, it uses the true (3-D) positions of the planets and calculates their separation along a great circle. If you switch this option off, aspects are calculated along the ecliptic, which is the standard method used in astrology. As you may have noticed, this makes little difference apart from aspects involving Neptune, Pluto or the Asteroids, as most other planets are close to the ecliptic anyway. The 3-D option is included in Solar Fire as an option for experimentation. We would recommend that you normally leave it switched off.
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8/11/01 Why is my Part of Fortune in a different position in Solar Fire v3 and v4 compared to v2 and some other programs? |
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Solar Fire v3 and v4 automatically use a different calculation for the Part of Fortune in diurnal and nocturnal charts. In previous versions of Solar Fire, and in some other programs, the same calculations have been applied to day and night charts. Therefore if you were born at night the position of the Part of Fortune in Solar Fire v3 may differ from previous versions, or other programs, or your own calculations. Solar Fire users can choose between the day/night formula or the day-time formula only under the Preferences menu option on Solar Fire's main screen. You simply click on Part of Fortune and select the formula of your choice.
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