Solar Fire reads data for asteroids whose ephemerides conform to the Swiss Ephemeris format or the older format created by Mark Pottenger (for use with his CCRS program). If you have additional asteroid ephemerides of either of these types, then you will be able to use these with Solar Fire. Solar Fire allows you to select many thousands of asteroids in a single selection file. However, to maintain a reasonable level of performance, it is recommended that you do not select more than about a thousand asteroids per file.

You can use Pottenger and Swiss Ephemeris asteroid selections interchangeably i.e. you can create asteroid selection files for asteroids from either source, and switch between them as you wish.

Note: Mark Pottenger released a new format of asteroid ephemerides in 2003. This new format is not supported in Solar Fire.

 

>> To find Pottenger asteroids on your computer

•Click on the Pottenger option button.

This will display a message asking if you wish to search for a location in which other asteroid ephemerides are present. If you click on the Yes button, then the program will search through all the folders on your hard drives, looking for a folder containing a file called “ASTPATH”. If this file is found, then you will be asked to confirm the name of the folder which is inside the file ASTPATH. (You also have the option of manually typing in a different folder name). The program will then search through that folder looking for asteroid ephemeris files, and these will appear in the list of available asteroids, ready to be selected.

Note: You can install Pottenger asteroid ephemerides to any location on your computer. However, they must be installed according to Pottenger’s recommended method in order for Solar Fire to be able to access them.

 

>> To find Swiss Ephemeris asteroids on your computer

•Click on the Swiss Ephemeris option button.

This will locate and list any available Swiss Ephemeris asteroids, and these will appear in the list of available asteroids, ready to be selected.

 

Downloading and Installing additional Asteroids

There are various resources that can help you to locate further additional asteroids for use in Solar Fire. However as these involve the use of third party websites they are subject to changes outside the control of Solar Fire, and the accuracy of the website addresses and following information cannot be guaranteed. Downloading and installing additional asteroids requires some ability with FTP sites and Windows file management and is not recommended for those who are not reasonably competent in these areas.

 

The Swiss Ephemeris

The Swiss Ephemeris makes freely available a full set of more than 8000 asteroid ephemeris files, which may be downloaded from their website. The standard date range for these Swiss Ephemeris asteroids is 1500 to 2100. This range can be extended to 3000BC to 3000AD (in most cases) by installing alternative larger ephemeris files. See www.astro.ch/swisseph/ for general information on the Swiss Ephemeris.

Two Swiss Ephemeris FTP folders where you can download asteroid files from currently are www.astro.com/ftp/swisseph/ephe/ (shorter date range) and http://www.astro.com/ftp/swisseph/ephe/longfiles (longer date range). These pages present the asteroid folders.

 

>> To download an asteroid source file from the Swiss Ephemeris

1.Open one of the Swiss Ephemeris FTP folders (current url address are shown above).

2.Click on a folder (directory) link next to the folder icon and another page will display the individual asteroid files stored in that folder.

3.Right-click on a file and select the Save target as... option on the popup menu - and a dialog box will open allowing you to save the file onto your hard disk.

4.Select the "MyDocuments" or "Documents" folder (or a subfolder in one of those) to download the file to.(Saving to MyDocuments or Documents avoids any problems in Windows Vista or later concerning lack of administration rights at this point in the procedure.)

You must use the file in Solar Fire with the same file name that it has on the FTP site, so once it is saved check that it has saved with the same name and extension, and if not rename it to be the same.

TIP: Asteroid files are listed according to their number so unless you know which number a certain asteroid has been allocated it will be difficult to know which folder it is in, and which file it is in the folder. You may be able to find out an asteroid's number by reading some of the text files on the asteroids page (www.astro.com/ftp/swisseph/ephe/) - these are files ending in a ".txt" extension e.g. "seasnam.txt" and "seasnam2.txt" etc.

Some asteroids and their numbers may also be found in files called ASTNAMES.TXT, SEASNAM.TXT (if they exist) in Solar Fire's Swiss Ephemeris location on the computer (see below).

Another way of finding out an asteroid number is to go to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory asteroid search website, and enter the asteroid name (e.g. Lucifer) in the Search box then press the Enter key. This will locate the asteroid information, and in the first line of information (the title) you will see the asteroid number followed by the asteroid name. (You can also type in the asteroid number and it will find it that way too.)
 

>> To install an asteroid file

Once downloaded you must install any of these Swiss Ephemeris asteroid files into subfolders of the main Swiss Ephemeris folder, according to the recommendations of its creators. The location of the Swiss Ephemeris folder in use can be found under the Ephemeris tab of the Preferences dialog.

Note:  From the Main Screen you can directly open the Windows folder where the Swiss Ephemeris files are located ...

•On the Utilities menu on the Main Screen click on Open SwissEph Files Folder.

The required subfolder names for the asteroids are Ast0, Ast1, Ast2, …, Ast10, Ast20.

Asteroids numbered 1 to 999 must be placed in Ast0, 1000 to 1999 in Ast1, 2000 to 2999 in Ast2 etc.

“Ast20” is used for unnumbered ephemeris files whose names begin with “se20…”.

Note: If you cannot create a subfolder in the main Swiss Ephemeris folder, or copy a file to a subfolder in it, it may be because you need administrator rights. In Windows Vista and Windows 7, to load a copy of "Windows Explorer" with administrator rights do the following...

1.With the mouse right-click the Start button.

2.Select All Programs

3.Select Accessories

4.Right-click on Windows Explorer

5.Select Run as administrator

 

>> To update the list of available asteroids after you have added or removed asteroid ephemeris files

1.Select the Chart Options menu, Files item, Asteroids File option.

This will open the "Asteroid Selection" dialog. The current asteroids file in use will be highlighted, but just what file it happens to be is not significant at this point.

2.Click on the Edit button

3.In the Location area click on either Solar Fire, Pottenger or Swiss Ephemeris, depending on which kind of asteroids you have downloaded.

4.Click on the Refresh List button.

For Solar Fire and Swiss Ephemeris asteroid locations, this will search the specified folder in the "Location" textbox for asteroid ephemeris files, and then update the list of available asteroids in the "Available Asteroids" list. For the Pottenger asteroid location see above.

Note: If you have removed any asteroid ephemeris files from your computer, then you must also remove them one by one from your list of "Selected Asteroids". If you have made major changes, then it may be easier to delete the entire asteroid selection file and create a new one from scratch.

Also see Ephemerides.

To include the newly downloaded asteroids in a Solar Fire asteroids file so you can select them see Editing an Asteroid File. You must do this before you can access the asteroids for use in Solar Fire.