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-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 astrolog.dat file (described later) that can be customized. There's the generic list of standard influences (which have items like Sun, Moon, and Ascendant most powerful), and a parallel list of transit influences (which have the slower moving bodies the most powerful). 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 -m0 combination. Both display aspects ordered by influence. In fact, "-i chart -Tn" will look almost identical to "-y chart -m0", 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: o -t switch: Display exact times of transits to natal planets. o -T switch: Display influences of transits to natal planets. o -d switch: Display exact times of aspects among transiting planets. o -D switch: Display influences of aspects among transiting planets. -Tp <month> <day> <year>: Print progressions instead of transits. 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 1 31 1994" 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 January. -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". -I [<columns>]: Print interpretation of selected charts. 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 don't know how to interpret 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, can 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 -m0 -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 -m0 -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. "-y -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. This interpretation toggle switch accepts an optional parameter to specify the number of screen columns in which to format the interpretation paragraphs. This is the same value as the screen width field in the astrolog.dat default file. Giving a parameter to -I can be used to override the astrolog.dat value without having to change the file. ---- Switches which affect how the chart parameters are obtained: -n: Compute chart for this exact moment using current time. For those with systems who can handle time calls (If your system pukes 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 -l switch to change the default location. To figure out the time zone, the program uses the default value in the astrolog.dat file or as defined in the DEFAULT_ZONE constant set at compile time. 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 AUTOEXEC.BAT file. -n[d,m,y]: Compute chart for start of current day, month, year. 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: Assume Daylight time (change default zone appropriately). Normally the -z option 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. (When entering the birth time for charts, one is supposed to subtract one hour if Daylight time was in effect; note that subtracting one hour from the time zone will do the same thing.) For example, over here on the West Coast, I have my default time zone compiled to be "8"; now that Daylight time is in effect here, I can do -z 7 or just -z to decrease the default time zone when I make 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 the times in your head, use the "defaults" file described later to edit the time zone.) Remember that the -z (and -l) switches must be before any other switches they modify (such as -n) in order for the new default to take effect. -z <zone>: Change the default time zone (for -d-q-t-E 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"; or, for the East coast where by default the time zone is "5", you can do "-z 4" during DST to properly display transits, aspects in day, and other lists in the local DST zone. -l <long> <lat>: Change the default longitude & latitude. Like the -z option, the -l 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. -q <month> <date> <year> <time>: Compute chart with defaults. 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. -qd <month> <date> <year>: Compute chart for noon on date. 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. -qm <month> <year>: Compute chart for first of month. -qy <year>: Compute chart for first day of year. 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 chart by entering the seven data coordinates manually. A fast typist familiar with the program might prefer to give all the data 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. -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. -i <file>: Compute chart based on info in file. See the -o option below. Note that there is a "virtual file" named "set" which can be passed to the -i and -r switches. Instead of looking for an actual disk file, this represents the "last" set of chart information dealt with, and is useful to avoid having to manually enter information in certain cases. (Other "virtual files" Astrolog can use are "now" which means the current time at the default location, and "tty" which means prompt the user for the info.) This is best used within a -Q loop. For example, you first manually enter the time for a chart and it's 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 now 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 this 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 "set" chart, i.e. what you get by directly doing something like "astrolog -i set" are initialized to the astrological "chart" for this version 4.10 of the program itself, which is 12:28pm PST (8 hours before GMT) on Sunday, March 20th, 1994 in Seattle, WA (122W20 47N36). -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 stuff, 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. (Some people have complained that the info in the Astrolog chart files is too cryptic to read.) 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' "Walter D. Pullen" Seattle will add my name and my birth city in two separate lines at the end of 'file'. (On most systems, quotes can be used to allow spaces within one parameter.) -o0 <file> [..]: Like -o but output planet/house positions. 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 old -o output to file switch. The information written includes the zodiac position of the 20 main objects, their retrograde status and declination, as well as the positions of the (first six) house cusps. 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 1..12, and floating point minute within 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 use that file as the first parameter to the -T option) 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 (like the vertex) with 0 degrees Aries or an important midpoint value. Note that trying to still use the -o time and space output with an output chart 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: The positions of the eight uranians can also be output to these planet position files in addition to the 20 main objects, but only if the uranians were actually calculated with -u in effect. Hence these 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. -os <file>: Redirect output of text charts to 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. ---- Switches which affect what information is used in a chart. -R [<obj1> [<obj2> ..]: Restrict specific bodies from displays. 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, the Part of Fortune and the Vertex from being in any of the lists. 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) so that a complete custom setup can be obtained (e.g. -R 1 2 3 4 5 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.) -R0 [<obj1> ..]: Like -R but restrict everything first. 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 -R 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. -R[C,u,U]: Restrict all minor cusps, all uranians, or stars. 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 astrolog.dat defaults file described later, and are right after the standard restriction table, both of which may be modified however you please. -C: Include non-angular house cusps in charts. This option must be indicated to include the four minor house cusps (i.e. 11th, 12th, 2nd, 3rd) in the various chart options, such as the -g aspect grids, -t transit searches, the X 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). -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 one must still use the default ordering when passing numbers to the -R option to restrict various stars. -A <0-18>: Specify the number of aspects to use in charts. 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. -Am <planet> <orb>: Specify maximum orb allowed to a planet. 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 astrolog.dat file (described later) will read in these default planet orbs for the first 20 objects. -Ad <planet> <orb>: Specify orb addition given to a planet. 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 astrolog.dat file will also read in defaults for these orb additions for the first 20 planets. (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.) -Aa <aspect> <angle>: Change the actual angle of an aspect. 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: -b: Use ephemeris files for more accurate location computations. Astrolog 4.10 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, and Chiron will be computed more accurately (although slower). The other asteroids, 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 in order to work. 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 December -5260 BC through March 3237 AD! There are 62 ephemeris files total. Each file covers a range of 100,000 days, or about 273 years. Altogether they take up 2.8 megabytes of disk space, but each segment of 273 years only takes up 90K. For each time segment, there is an ephemeris file named "LRZ5_n" containing the positions of Jupiter through Pluto (at 80 day increments) and a file "CHI_n" containing the positions of Chiron. The 'n' refers to span of Julian Days covered by it (divided by 100000). For example, Julian Days 1,200,000 through 1,300,000 are in the files "LRZ5_12" and "CHI_12" (the 'm' character in some files refers to negative/minus Julian Days). You don't need all the files to use -b, just those that cover the dates you want to use. If you try to use -b with a date not covered by an available ephemeris file, an error message will be printed and the Matrix positions will be used. The files "LRZ5_24" and "CHI_24" cover the years 1859 through 2131 AD, which is good for most modern purposes and only takes up 90K. (These two files were included in the released zip archive for this version. For Unix users who want any ephemeris files, and PC users who want to cover more years, the complete set of files is at the hilbert anonymous ftp site.) 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. 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 astrolog.dat file, which when set, will always use the Placalc routines and is the same as just including -b all the time, in which case -b will toggle them back off. There is a compile time option #define PLACALC in the astrolog.h which can be commented out to disable the -b switch and the new formulas. 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. Special thanks goes to Dr. Alois Treindl who kindly allowed his formulas to be used in Astrolog. Mr. Treindl is the founder and owner of Astrodienst Zurich, second largest astrological computer service in Europe, and is well known for his work with Liz Greene. Astrolog basically treats his Placalc routines as a library which we link into, in that code that knows about both programs is kept to a minimum. In fact, any changes made to the Placalc .c and .h files are under #ifdef ASTROLOG, so by reverse applying this, one can regenerate the original files that came with the Placalc package. -b0: Like -b but display locations to the nearest second too. 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. The only charts presently affected by -b0 are the -w text wheel chart and the sidebar positions in graphic wheel charts. There is also an astrolog.dat flag called "Print zodiac seconds" which when set will always display to the second even if -b itself isn't specified (in which case -b0 can be used to toggle it back off). -c <value>: Select a different default system of houses. (0 = Placidus, 1 = Koch, 2 = Equal, 3 = Campanus, 4 = Meridian, 5 = Regiomontanus, 6 = Porphyry, 7 = Morinus, 8 = Topocentric, 9 = Equal (MC), 10 = Neo-Porphyry, 11 = None.) Twelve 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 halt and print an appropriate error. 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 system 11 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, and one can even observe the precession of the equinoxes with this system if used in conjunction with the -s sidereal chart option. -s [..]: Compute a sidereal instead of the normal tropical chart. With this option, the chart will be just like the normal charts as most commonly used in 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 Western sidereal zodiac. This value is initialized to a zodiac offset value setting in the astrolog.dat initialization file, which is by default zero. -s0: Display locations as right ascension instead of degrees. For astronomers out there, this -s0 option will print 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 the star azimuths are displayed in the -O 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. -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 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. -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. -p0 <month> <day> <year>: Cast solar arc chart for date. 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. (Note that "-pd 1 -p..." would be the same as if no progression were done at all.) -x <1-360>: 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.) -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. -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. -- [<days>]: Cast chart for specified no. of days in the past. 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: -r <file1> <file2>: Compute a relationship synastry chart. 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'.) -rc <file1> <file2>: Compute a composite chart. 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.