Selecting Advanced Options

You can select a number of options relating to how aspect orbs are calculated and used in Solar Fire, and you can also add your own user-defined aspects for use in any part of Solar Fire.

>> To display the advanced aspect options

•Click on the Advanced button.

Clicking this button toggles the advanced options display area on and off. However, if certain advanced options are selected, this button will become disabled, and you will not be able to switch it off unless you switch off the selected advanced options. The purpose of this limitation is to ensure that you are aware that certain advanced options have been selected when you select this aspect set for editing.

Orb Types

You can select from three different types of orbs...

•Use Luminary/Other Orbs - This is the standard option that applies if you do not select the Advanced Options button, and was the only option available in previous versions of Solar Fire. This allows you to enter two sets of orbs for each aspect. One set of orbs that apply when a luminary (i.e. the sun or the moon) is making an aspect, and another set of orbs when any other planet is making an aspect.

•Use Planet Orb Ratios - This option allows for the possibility of each planet having a different orb for the same aspect. Rather than allowing orbs to be entered for each planet (which would involve many hundreds of orbs being entered), the user specifies an orb ratio for each planet, and specifies just a single set of base orbs for each aspect. The orbs of any individual planet are then calculated by multiplying the base orb by that planet’s orb ratio.

•Use Aspects by Sign Only - This option precludes the use of orbs, by determining aspects only according to which signs each planet is placed in. For example, if one planet is in Aries, and another in Cancer, then they are in Square aspect, regardless of which degree of their signs they are in. With this option, only the first nine aspects in the list are active.

An additional option that may be selected in combination with the first two of the above

•Use Sign as well as Orb – When this is enabled, any aspect that is found within its specified orb is also checked to determine if it is also in the same aspect by sign. If it is not, then the aspect is ignored. For example, if one planet is at 1 degree of Aries, and another is at 29 degrees of Gemini, then they would be square with an orb of 2 degrees, but the signs are 60 degrees apart (i.e. sextile), so this aspect would be disregarded.

Special Options

There are three special options that can be used in conjunction with some of the Orb Types.

•Use 3D Aspects (True Body) - Astrologers usually work with aspects in ecliptic longitude, which means that the positions of the planets are projected onto the ecliptic before aspects are calculated between them. An alternative is to measure the true angle between the two bodies along the shortest distance between them. These are known variously as 3D, true-body or great circle aspects. Because most of the planets have orbits close to the ecliptic, there is normally not much difference between traditional aspects and 3D aspects. However Pluto has an orbit that is at a significant inclination to the ecliptic, so it is possible that 3D aspects of Pluto will be significantly different from the traditional aspects. The other area in which 3D aspects may be especially interesting is in relation to fixed stars. As most stars are not close to the ecliptic, there will be a big difference between 3D and traditional aspects between planets and stars. The fact that stars are not close to the ecliptic is sometimes given as a criticism of using ecliptical aspects between stars and planets. Therefore it is well worth trying this 3D option when generating a fixed star aspects report. This option is provided as an opportunity to experiment - there is very little written about this yet.

•Use Moieties (Half Planet Orbs) - This option may only be selected in association with the Planet Orb Ratios option. The principle of moieties is to determine the orb of an aspect by adding half of the orb of each planet involved. (This is identical to averaging the orb for each planet involved in an aspect.) For example, if Pluto has an orb of 6° and The Sun has an orb of 12°, then the moiety is 9°, so they are in aspect with each other only when they are within 9° of each other.

•Unidirectional Orbs - A unidirectional orb is one that operates in a single direction, so the orb that is applied between two planets depends on the order in which the planets are considered. For example, if Pluto has an orb of 6° and The Sun has an orb of 12°, and they are 9° apart, then the Sun would be considered to be conjunct Pluto (because it has an orb of 12°), but Pluto would not be considered to be conjunct the Sun (because it has an orb of 6°).

Note: If you have selected to use Planet Orb Ratios as your basic Orb Type, and also selected Unidirectional orbs, the lowest orb ratio is used for aspects in orb calculations.

>> To set planet orb ratios

1.Select the Planet Orb Ratios option button.

2.Specify the required Aspect Orbs - Applying and Separating, for Natal, Progressed and Transiting planets.

3.Select one (or more) planets from the Planet Ratios list box

4.Enter an orb ratio in the Current Planet’s Ratio edit box - any changes you make will immediately be reflected in the orbs displayed under the Current Planet orbs.

5.Repeat steps 3 to 4 until all the planet’s orbs ratios are set as required.

Typically, the orb ratios that you set will be in the range of 0.1 to 2.0 or thereabouts. To start with, you might like to specify the Sun’s orb as having a ratio 1.0, and then specify all the other planet’s orbs in relation to that, in which case all your other orb ratios will probably be less than 1.0.

>> To add a user defined aspect

1.Click on the Add Aspect button - This will add a user-defined aspect with the name “New Aspect”, abbreviation “New”, angle 0°, an alphabetic character as a glyph, and a solid black linestyle.

2.Edit the name, abbreviation and Angle by clicking on the appropriate edit boxes and typing in the new details. The angle may be entered in degrees, minutes and seconds (eg 22 30) or decimal degrees (e.g. 22.5).

3.Choose a glyph by clicking inside the Glyph box, and then typing any keyboard character that you would like to use to represent this aspect.

4.Select a line style by clicking on the LineStyle buttons.

5.Select a color for the new aspect by clicking on the Color button and selecting a color from the standard color selection dialog.

Once you have added a user-defined aspect, you can switch it on or off in the same manner as for other standard aspects. However, if you wish to permanently remove a user-defined aspects, then you can remove it from the list altogether.

>> To delete a user defined aspect

1.Highlight the desired user-defined aspect

2.Click on the Del Aspect button.

>> To save any changes and exit from the aspect editor

•Click on the Save button.