STEP ONE

Installing Named Centaurs from CD.

Insert CD into drive. When the menu comes up (it should come up automatically) highlight Solar Fire V5 Goodies then click on Install and go through the installation procedure. This will install the named centaurs into Solar Fire.

STEP TWO

Configuring Centaurs in Solar Fire

Open Solar Fire.

Go to Chart Options in the menu and click on Extra Ring Points

Click on Create and create a file called Centaurs.

Then click on Edit. This opens the Extra Point Selection window.

On the right click on the Asteroid button. Now click on Select File.

This opens Asteroids File Management window. There should be two files: Standard and Named Centaurs.

Click on Named Centaurs to open it. Select the Centaurs you want or deselect the asteroids you don’t want. Suggestion: Asbolus, Chariklo, Pholus, Nessus. (Chiron is already available as a major point in Solar Fire)

Click on Save then in the next window click on Select.

To show Centaurs in Solar Fire go to STEP SIX

To download and install the Astrosturm font including Centaur glyphs go to STEP SEVEN

To get Solar Fire to display Centaur glyphs go to STEP EIGHT.

Installing More Centaurs.

Use steps 3, 4 and 5 to install ONLY to install additional centaurs/asteroids not included in the Solar Fire Goodies files.

Preliminary notes

Each Asteroid (including Centaurs) was allocated a number after it was discovered. You will need to know the number in order to install it in Solar Fire.

Numbers of common named Centaurs are as follows

Pholus 5145

Nessus 7066

Asbolus 8405

Hylonome 10370

Chariklo 10199

Cyllarus 52975

Okyrhoe 52872

Elatus 31824

Thereus 32532

Pelion 49036

STEP THREE

Download Ephemeris files

Go online and go to http://www.astro.ch/swisseph

Go to Download area and open Ephemeris files

To download ephemeris for Pholus 5145

Open folder ast5 and scroll down till you come to file se05045s.se1

click on the file to download it.

Depending on which browser you are using and how it is configured the file will be downloaded to your hard drive.

An alternative is to create a temporary directory on your hard drive and download your ephemeris files there.

To download ephemeris for Nessus 7066

Open ast7 and scroll down till you come to file se07066s.se1

click to download.

Here is a list of the named centaurs with their numbers and the folders you’ll find them in:

Pholus 5145 ast5

Nessus 7066 ast7

Asbolus 8405 ast8

Hylonome 10370 ast10

Chariklo 10199 ast10

Cyllarus 52975 ast52

Okyrhoe 52872 ast52

Elatus 31824 ast31

Thereus 32532 ast32

Pelion 49036 ast49

STEP FOUR

Create Directories

Then you have to create those directories in your Solar Fire folder.

So go to My Computer and open the Solfire5 directory, then open the SwissEph directory. Now you create the folders for the ephemerides you have just downloaded.

Create folder and name it ast5 then move the Pholus ephemeris se05045s.se1 into that directory

Then create a folder and name it ast7 and move the Nessus ephemeris se07066s.se1 into that directory and so on with the other ephemerides.

Now you’ve finished the first part so close everything and now:

STEP FIVE

Installing Centaurs in Solar Fire

Start Solar Fire.

In the menu go to Chart Options and Extra Ring Points.

Click on Create. It will ask you for a name. Call the file “Centaurs” or and click OK.

That will take you back to the previous screen

Now click on Edit which will open a box called Extra Point Selection.

Where it says Point Type, click Asteroids.

Now click on Select File.

This opens another dialogue box.

Click on create and name the file Centaurs as before

Then click on Edit which will open a box called Asteroid Selection.

First you have to tell Solar Fire where the information is so where it says Location click on Swiss Ephemeris.

Then click on Refresh list which should bring the asteroids you have downloaded into the Available Asteroids window.

To select an asteroid, just click on it and it will be copied to the Selected Asteroids window.

When you’ve copied over as many as you want click Save.

That returns you to the window called File Management where the file you’ve just created should be highlighted. Click on Select.

Now you’re back at the Extra Point Selection window and now you’ve got two columns. One is Available Points the other is Selected Points. To Select a point you highlight it in the Available Points column and then click Add to move it across.

Add the points you want to this file.

When you’ve added all the points you want, click on Save.

Now you’re back at the File Management window for Extra Ring Points. Highlight the name of the file you’ve just created and click on Select.

STEP SIX

Viewing the Centaurs

Now you’re ready to put the Centaurs in a chart

So open the chart you want to work with and double-click on it to view it.

Hah! The ordinary chart you’ve seen before.

But now click on Wheel Style and you’ll open a File Management box for Wheel Design. You’ll see something highlighted like UNI1.WH1

Find and click on UNIEXTRA2.WH1

Then click select and you should see a chart wheel with an inner wheel of your normal selection of planets/points and an outer wheel of the Centaurs you’ve just downloaded and installed.

The Centaurs should now be available in most of the Chart functions in Solar Fire including Returns, Harmonics, Progressions and Combined Charts.

You can even view Bi-Wheels with Centaurs included by putting up a bi-wheel, clicking on Wheel Style and highlighting and selecting biextra.wh2.

However to use Centaurs in Dynamic functions such as Transits, Progressions and Graphic Ephemerides, see STEP NINE below.

STEP SEVEN

Downloading Fonts

But what you’ll see on the chart wheel is points labelled a1, a2, a3 etc, according to the order you selected them when you created the Extra Ring Points file.

Maybe you’d like Glyphs instead.

So you can download the fonts with glyphs for the Centaurs from

http://www.sturm-astrologie.com/x-kk.htm

Gut Gott! It’s in German.

If you don’t know German, nevermind.

You’ll see on the left, Sturm-Fonts.

That will take you to a screen where you can download from a link called Download Fonts AstroSturm

There’s also a pdf (Acrobat) file

Download PDF-File on the Fonts ENGLISH

in English with all sorts of information.

Once you’ve downloaded the file just copy it into your Windows/Fonts directory and it should be available without doing anything else.

STEP EIGHT

Displaying Centaur Glyphs

In Solar Fire, choose Chart Options from the menu, then Extra Ring Points, then highlight your Centaur file then click Edit.

This opens the Extra Point Selection window.

At the bottom left you will see Glyphs.

Click where it says Fonts. This opens the Fonts window. Scroll till you find Astrosturm. Highlight it (here you can also increase the font size. I would suggest increasing it to 10 as this is what will show on the charts on the screen and when you print) and click OK.

That will return you to the Extra Ring Points window where you type the keystroke number of the Centaur (these numbers are in the Appendix to this worksheet)

Alternatively click in the Glyphs box then click the arrow to the right of it. This brings up a map of all the symbols available in the Astrosturm fonts file. Click on the one you want and copy it to the Glyphs box.

You can also change the colour of the Glyph by clicking on Colour and choosing.

You have to go through the whole procedure for each Centaur.

Then when you’ve changed all the glyphs you want click on save which returns you to the File Management window where you click Select.

STEP NINE

More with Centaurs in Solar Fire

Transits and Progressions:

As well as showing the centaurs on the chart wheel, Solar Fire also lets you use them in Transits and Progressions, also in the Graphic Ephemeris.

Click on Dynamic/ Transits and Progressions and then in Point Selection you click on Extra and you can create your Centaur file here to run as Extra Transiting Points. You do the same for Centaurs as Extra Progressed Points or as Extra Radix Points. Just as you created them as Extra Ring Points.

Then when you view your dynamic report the Centaur points will be included.

However, if you run with glyphs, you will not see the Centaur glyphs you have installed, you will only see the identifying numbers: a1, a2, a3 etc. So it’s better to run with the glyphs switched off. The alternative is to keep a list of which Centaurs correspond to which number.

Graphic Ephemeris:

Likewise in the Graphic Ephemeris you can add the Centaurs as extra points. But again you won’t be able to see the glyphs, only the identifying numbers.

Appendix:

Centaur Numbers & Astrosturm Glyphs

1 Chiron 2060

2 Pholus 5145

3 Nessus 7066

4 Asbolus 8405

6 Chariklo 10199

5 Hylonome 10370

7 Cyllarus 52975 1998 TF 35

8 Okyrhoe 52872

9 Elatus 31824

0 Thereus 32532

! Pylenor 1994 TA

ß Pelion 49036 1998 QM 107

Keystrokes for the Centaurs in Astrosturm

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 !

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 !

The glyph for Pelion ß cannot be typed for some reason and has be taken from the symbol table.

Created by Brian Lee Oct 2004. Feel free to distribute.

brian@magiciel.co.uk