Setting Ephemeris Options

In the "Ephemeris Generator" the selections that you may make are as follows...

•Period of Ephemeris - Enter the date and time from which you wish the ephemeris to start and the date and time at which you wish the ephemeris to finish. Dates and times may be entered in the same way as they entered for Solar Fire charts. The starting date and time are used for the first ephemeris entry, and entries are then calculated at the specified frequency until the end date and time are reached. (You may stop the ephemeris generator at any point during calculations if you wish).

•Frequency of Entries - Specify the required interval between ephemeris entries by choosing a unit from the dropdown list box, and optionally a number of units. It is possible to specify an interval from 1 minute up to thousands of years if required. Typically, you may wish to generate entries every 1 day, 10 days, 1 month or 1 year.

•Ephemeris Time Zone - Published ephemerides are usually calculated for the GMT timezone (+0:00). However, you may enter any timezone that you wish, either manually by typing in a zone abbreviation and/or time, or by using the Zone button and selecting a zone from the list.

•Zodiac - Select the zodiac in which you wish the ephemeris to be generated from the drop-down list of zodiacs. The available zodiacs are the same as those that can be used in other Solar Fire charts. The topical zodiac is that most commonly used in western astrology.

•Coordinates - Select the desired coordinate system from the option buttons. Published ephemerides are usually in geocentric coordinates.

•Lunar Node - If you are including the moon’s node as a selected point to list, then select the desired lunar node type from the option buttons. This option is ignored if the moon’s node is not selected as a point to list.

•Items to List - You may select one or more items to list by clicking on their check boxes. The generated ephemeris will have one column for each item to list for each selected point to list.

•Points To List - You may either select any set of Transiting Points and/or Extra Points (as in the dynamic report). Click on the name of the file to see the "File Manager" with a list of selectable files. You can also create new selections by using the Create button in the "File Manager". Note that some of the points you can select will give different results depending on the location. For example, chart angles like the Ascendant and Midheaven, and the parallax corrected Moon will vary according to location. The location adopted for these calculations is always that of the currently selected chart in the list of "Calculated Charts". Hence, if you wish to list chart angles for another location, you must first cast a chart for that location, and then select it as the current chart, before entering the ephemeris generator.

•Precision - You can select whether to display the calculated positions to the nearest minute of arc or second of arc. Bear in mind that most of Solar Fire’s planets are accurate to seconds of arc, but some asteroids are only accurate to about a minute of arc. Therefore, displaying the asteroid positions to the nearest second of arc is not useful.

•Notation - The generator can display its output in normal Zodiacal notation, or in Decimal Degrees. The Decimal Degrees option is useful if you want to export the data generated into a spreadsheet or database program, and have it recognized as a numerical value rather than as a text string.