Asteroid
Features of Sirius and Kepler
By David Cochrane
Why Asteroid Features Are Important:
In the
late 20th century and early 21st century astronomers made remarkable
discoveries that change our understanding of the solar system. Whereas there
was once a fairly clear distinction between planets and asteroids, the
distinction has become blurred. There is a range of objects varying from those
that are clearly planets (Mercury, Earth, Venus, Mars, etc.) to those that have
some attributes of planets (Ceres, Pluto, etc.) to the many thousands of
objects that are clearly asteroids. Given
the wide spectrum of objects and the astronomical discoveries that have made
the distinction between planets and some asteroids less clear-cut than it used
to be, we have worked to build access to asteroids in many parts of the
software.
Adding Newly Discovered Asteroids:
We
periodically update our software as major new asteroids are discovered or
asteroids are named. Asteroids are calculated using an asteroid ephemeris
created by AstroDienst, the makers of the Swiss
Ephemeris routines. As new asteroid ephemerides
become available they can be added to the asteroid ephemerides
in Kepler and Sirius, and they are detected and can
be accessed. This feature makes it possible for new asteroids to become
available in Kepler and Sirius as new asteroids are
discovered or information about their orbits is improved.
Given
below is a summary of some of the most important features in Sirius 1.1 for use
with asteroids. Whether this feature is also available in Kepler
is also mentioned.
1. Asteroids included in the software: Kepler
comes with over 1,000 asteroids and Sirius comes with over 1,400 asteroids. You
can also purchase a set of 4 CD's that provides an additional 38,000 asteroids.
If the optional asteroids are purchased, these asteroids can be accessed as
well.
2. Asteroids in a "regular"
chart wheel: In
Sirius you can put over a dozen asteroids in a chart wheel. Suppose, for
example, that you wish to have Ceres, Sedna, and Eris in your chart wheels but not any other asteroids. You
can do this in Sirius. If there is a glyph available for the asteroid, the
glyph can be used or a 3-letter abbreviation can be used. With this feature you
do not have hand-draw asteroids in a wheel or have asteroids you do not wish to
have in a chart wheel. They are placed in the wheel just like the planets. In
Sirius 1.1 we added a feature not in Sirius 1.0 of being able to have a table
that indicates which asteroid is associated with each glyph or 3-letter abbreviation.
Otherwise, it may not be obvious to others that "Sed",
for example, is Sedna. Placing asteroids in a regular
chart wheel is available only in Sirius.
3. The Asteroid Wheel: The Asteroid Wheel is a BiWheel with the planets in the inner wheel and asteroids
in the outer wheel. Because there is more room for asteroids, over 60 asteroids
can be placed in an Asteroids Wheel. The Asteroids Wheel is very helpful when
you wish to have, for example, a few dozen asteroids in your chart wheel. The
Asteroid Wheel is available in both Kepler and
Sirius.
4. Asteroid Listings: If you wish to study more than
about 60 asteroids then it becomes impossible to fit them in a chart wheel. In
both Kepler and Sirius you can produce listings of
asteroids. Some of the default settings are listings of 1,000 asteroids or
thousands of asteroids if you own the 38,000 asteroid CD, and perhaps most
useful is the "My Asteroids" list which allows you to create your own
lists. You can produce lists in alphabetical or zodiac order. There are severa default "My
Asteroid" lists. In Sirius we added a few more default lists like the
Demetra George list of asteroids that Demetra George often uses, and asteroids
that are named after places, asteroids that are mythical in nature, etc. Of
course you can create your own list as well. In Sirius there is greater
flexibility in the information that you include in the listing so you can, for
example, have only the asteroid name, asteroid number, and its zodiac position
if you wish, and you can also include latitude, speed, right ascension, and/or
declination if you wish. You can also produce a 180 degree, 90 degree, 120
degree, 60 degree, etc. sort. This allows you to see planets aspecting an asteroid. Some astrologers, for example, use
the 180 degree sort to see conjunctions and oppositions to the asteroids. The
planet and angular house cusp positions are incuded
in the list as well, with asterisks before and after the planet name, so that
you can scan above and below the planet to see which asteroids are aspecting the planet. This feature is available only in
Sirius.
5. Asteroid transits: You can include up to 8 asteroids
in a transit list. The asteroid can be the transiting planet and/or the natal
planet. You can, therefore, obtain transit lists or transit time lines with
transiting and natal Sedna, Eris,
and Chiron only (in addition to the planets) if you wish. This feature is
available only in Sirius.
6. Asteroids in the graphic ephemeris: You can also put transiting
asteroids in a graphic ephemeris. As with the features described above, you can
select the specific asteroids you wish to have and if you own the 38,000
asteroids option, virtually any named asteroid can be selected. This feature is
available only in Sirius.
7. Asteroids Text Ephemeris: You can create an ephemeris (not a
graphic ephemeris, but a regular ephemeris or "text ephemeris" as we
call it to distinguish it from a graphic ephemeris). Some astrologers wait
anxiously for an ephemeris to be available online when a major new asteroid is
discovered but with Kepler and Sirius you can
download the asteroid file from AstroDienst or if it
is a very major asteroid we will add it free of charge to our update program,
and you can obtain the text ephemeris yourself, as well as use the asteroid in
all the other ways described in this article. This feature is available in both
Kepler and Sirius.
8. Asteroids in AstroMaps: You can place any asteroid in an AstroMap. You can, therefore, see the Sedna
and Eris AstroMap lines
just as you can see a planet line on an AstroMap.
This feature is available only in Sirius.
9. Asteroids in AstroSignature
Research: The AstroSignature research feature of Kepler
and Sirius is a fabulously flexible research feature that allows you to search
for any aspects, house placements, midpoints, etc. that you are interested in
and you can even give a different weight to each astrological factor to obtain
a score for each chart. In Sirius you can include asteroids in the AstroSignature. This feature allows you, for example, to
search the database of over 43,000 charts provided in Sirius to see all charts
in which the Sun is conjunct Eris (or any other
aspect, planet in house, etc.) This feature is available only in Sirius.
10. The Asteroid Signatures Option: Jacob Schwartz has created an
option for both Kepler and Sirius called the Asteroid
Signatures Report. This report allows you to see all asteroids related to any
of thousands of topics that make aspects in a birth chart. Suppose you wish to
know if any asteroids related to "Chicago" or "London" or
someone's name like "Charles" or "Virginia" make aspects to
planets in your chart. With the Asteroid Signatures report you can do this.
11. Other Features, and Future Features: The above list was created from
memory, and it is possible that we neglected to mention some features. If there
is a particular feature that you would like, let us know and we will let you
know if it is possible. If not and it is a feature that others would be
interested in, we will add to our list of things to do. Astrology is almost
endless but we are attempting to create software that will provide the features
that most people need. The same attention that we have given to asteroid
calculations is given to our calculations in Vedic, Hellenistic, medieval,
harmonics, symmetrical astrology, etc. as well so our software gives you a
resource for exploring and working with a broad array of ideas. Of course no
one uses all of these features but they are there if you ever need them.
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