Search for Declinations

How can I find points in a chart that have the same declination as a particular (main) point or house cusp? Or points that have the opposite declination to that? And can I search for points having this in many charts at once or do I have to look in one chart at a time?

Points having the same declination would be in "parallel" to the declination of that particular main point, and points having the opposite declination would be in contra parallel to that particular main body.

When a chart is displayed in the "View" screen we could look for points in parallel or contra parallel to a specific declination, by clicking on the Reports button, then the Tabulations tab, then on the Declinations report. In that report we can see the declination for each chart point, both numerically and graphically, and thus will see which points are in exact or close to exact parallel or contra parallel to any particular declination.

However using Solar Fire's "Chart Search" facility we can search for parallel or contra parallel points in some or all charts in Solar Fire at once, and we can also specify how much of an orb is permissible in the results.

The following procedure will find all the charts from your selected chart files which have one or more points with the same amount of declination as your particular main point (e.g. the declination of the Moon in each chart where that declination is within a certain range that you specify).

For this example, we will use the Moon in each chart as our particular main point whose declination we will be searching for amongst the declinations of all the other (specified) points in our (selected) chart files.

1.From the "Main Screen" click the Chart menu.

2.Click Chart Search, which will bring up the "Chart Search" window.

3.In the "Chart Files To Search" section select all the chart files that have charts in them that you want to search.

4.In the bottom right of the window choose an Aspect Set that contains both Parallels and Conjunctions. Your aspect set must include both Parallels and Conjunctions in order for this to work properly. The "Standard" aspect set is usually a good choice.

5.In the "Search Condition Selection" area click on the In Aspect tab.

6.In the Point or Cusp dropdown box select the (particular main) point or house cusp which has the declination you want to search for in all your charts.

7.For In select "Parallel".

8.For With select a point you want to be included when searching in each selected chart file to see if that point has a matching declination to that of the point you selected in (6).

9.Click the Add button. This condition will now appear on the left in the "List of Search Conditions" area, after the word "FIND".

Repeat steps (8) to (9) for each point you want to be included when searching the declination of points in your selected chart files. Each time you do this you are adding another search condition. After the first search condition was added (the first time you did step 9) it had the word "FIND" at the beginning, and all subsequent conditions will have the word "AND" at the beginning.  

11. For each condition that starts with the word "AND"

(a)click on the condition

(b)click on the And/Or button. This will change the "AND" to "OR".

12. In the "Search Condition Selection" area click on the Coordinates tab.

13. In the Point or Cusp dropdown box select the same point as you did in step (6).

14. In the Coordinate Type dropdown box select "Declination"

15. In the Comparison Type dropdown box select ">=" (greater than or equal to)

16. In the Comparison Value dropdown box enter the minimum orb you will allow in the results.

17. Click the Add button. This condition will now appear on the left in the "List of Search Conditions" area, after the word "AND". Leave it this way.

18.  In the Comparison Type dropdown box select "<=" (less than or equal to)

19. In the Comparison Value dropdown box enter the maximum orb you will allow in the results.

20. Click the Add button. This condition will now appear on the left in the "List of Search Conditions" area, after the word "AND". Leave it this way.

21. Click the Search button. You will get a list of every selected point you set (in steps 8 - 9) in every chart in every selected chart file you selected (in step 3) whose declination is the same as (within the minimum and maximum orb you set in steps 15 - 20) -parallel to- the declination of the point you set in step 6.

You can also search for contraparallels by repeating all this but selecting "ContraParallel" in step 7.