Swiss Ephemeris Files

Solar Fire uses the Swiss Ephemeris for virtually all of it's planetary position calculations. The user has some flexibility regarding the location of the Swiss Ephemeris files on their computer that Solar Fire uses. By default Solar Fire installs a copy of the Swiss Ephemeris into a standard location in the Program Files or Program Files (x86) folder. However Solar Fire doesn't have to use these files if you have a copy of the Swiss Ephemeris at another location and would prefer to use that instead.

You can direct Solar Fire to use Swiss Ephemeris files at a different location in either of two ways:

1.Via the Preferences menu, Edit Settings - see Ephemerides

2.By creating a User environment variable on your computer,which is normally done via the System icon in Windows Control Panel. (In Windows 7 you need to then select Advanced System Settings/Environment Variables). This option is included for users who are reasonably familiar with the technical side of Windows and is not recommended for those who aren't.

>> Create a new user environment variable called "SE_EPHE_PATH" (without the quotes) and set it's value to the full path to the folder containing the Swiss Ephemeris files.

The next time Solar Fire starts up it will check for this variable and if the path is valid it will use the Swiss Ephemeris files at this location. In this scenario it may also delete the copy of Swiss Ephemeris files that it initially placed in a location in Program Files when Solar Fire was installed.

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

>> To open the current folder (default or otherwise) of the Swiss Ephemeris

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