From: astrolog@byron.u.washington.edu (Astrolog)
Subject: Re: Help needed, please, and quickly
Summary: How to muck with the Astrolog output.
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 11:18:13 GMT

In article <BzEFpv.4yt@axion.bt.co.uk> agray@axion.bt.co.uk (Andy Gray) writes:
>HELP ... I've been asked to do a chart for 25th May 1200 for my local town for
>the coming year. Going through to the Astrological Association here in the UK
>they have given me the chart information (official date for the town plus the
>positions of the planets, ascendant, MC, and node). I've dialled this into
>astrolog (v2.30) and I get ballpark figures for some of the inner planets, but
>from Jupiter out things are way out, for example
>	astrolog -a 5 25 1200 0.00 0 -1.10 52.04 

Unfortunately, the formulas in Astrolog, although quite accurate for
years 1900-2000, were designed only for this century, and hence start
to vary from the correct results the farther in the future or past you
go. Furthermore, the harmonic error correction factors that are added
in especially for this century cause even further ballooning yielding
those 10 degree errors. You might try removing the error correction
feature in formulas.c which although it will make this century less
accurate, might just make those previous centuries more accurate.

>I know there have been a number of time changes throughout the years,
>but some of these positions are quite wildly out. I've used the -F
><obj> <sign> <degree> facility in astrolog, but it doesn't enable me
>to state that Jupiter is retrograde, and the ascendant appears on the
>chart, but the program recalculates the house cusps regardless of that
>value. My ephemeris cannot help me out :-(

Unfortunately, you can't specify retrogradation (or the declination
either) with the -F switch. However, there's worse news. There is a
big bug in the -F feature. Although it will correctly move the
position of the object, it won't update its house position. In other
words, you can move a planet from Aries to Libra, but it will still
remain back in the Aries sign's house! This is readily apparent in a
-w chart, but fortunately the graphics charts are still displayed
correctly. Anyway, this is another bug being fixed.

>I can work out much from the (drawn) chart, using equal houses, and the
>ephemeris, but the chart has to be done within the next couple of days and is
>causing me a little concern <Bwaah> :-( A generated chart would look really
>impressive.

In spite of the Astrolog inaccuracies and -F switch shortcomings,
there is an easy way to get the precise chart you want, with correct
retrogradations and all. Send the current inaccurate chart to a file
with the -o0 switch. Remember the -o0 switch outputs the actual
planet positions, not just the chart time info, to the file. You can
then edit this file to the proper positions. Then load it back into
Astrolog with the standard -i switch and everything is fine! Create X
charts, calculate transits to this chart, and so on.

Now, because this modified chart is just the positions (no time or
space), you can't animate it or do progressions, but transits and
analysis with the chart itself is a snap. That's much of what this -o0
switch is for. It allows one to do transits to composite charts, for
example. The -F switch is mainly if you just want to edit one or two
objects, e.g. change the vertex to be your Sun Moon midpoint for the
aspect grid; but if you want to do some major changes, just edit a -o0
output file. I've made my own -o0 files to experiment with various
imaginary non-existant charts, e.g. the ultimate soul-mate chart -
what possible chart would be most harmonious with my own, etc.

>The program has served me well so far, and not many charts are cast that far
>back!
>
>Andy Gray       Tel: +44 473 646647    e-mail: agray@axion.bt.co.uk
>		"It does not do to leave a dragon out of your calculation,
>		if you live near him." J.R.R.Tolkein

BTW, I ported the Astrolog 2.30 code to my PC. This means even if I
don't get any PC Windows graphics in version 2.40 (which I highly
doubt since I've already written some of my own Windows programs) we
can rest assured that the next version will compile on PC's without
any of the old problems that I never knew about before since I
couldn't test the program on a PC before posting it. Those days are
over! New feature idea: option for colored ansi text in the PC text
charts; highlight the planet positions, etc :)

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|     Walter D. "Cruiser1" Pullen    -    astrolog@byron.u.washington.edu     |
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